Sphere got in the blog search game late. Although Technorati was screwing up big time when Sphere entered the market, Google was just getting settled as well. Back then, I thought Google entering the market would be a death sentence for Sphere. They proved me wrong; Sphere was just sold for an estimate of 25 million dollars.

TechCrunch broke the news that AOL acquired Sphere. For those of you unfamiliar; Sphere started out as a blog search engine like Technorati, but ended up syndicating blog posts to major news sites. I recently devoted a blog post to the strategy of Twingly who have adopted a similar business model.

I’ve never been that into Sphere myself, but I must say their algorithm is doing a fine job matching content. As far as I know they only do English content and since I was blogging exclusively in Dutch at the time, their service had little use for me. I looked at it when they launched, then forgot about them.

After a rough start, Sphere definitely grew into something substantial. They have outstanding deals with major publishers like Reuters, Time, CBS, Washington Post, Newsweek and Major League Baseball, making it a sure buy for AOL. I expect Sphere-based technology to play a large role in the new strategy they’re rolling out. Seeing AOL’s focus on content, they have enough options to put Sphere to work.

The real question is what the future holds for Sphere. Even if the course remains unchanged, they are stepping further and further away from the blogosphere and are turning into a general content matching party. Now AOL is pulling the strings, it wouldn’t surprise me if this will increase even further.

I see the benefits from that approach for Sphere as a company, but on the other hand their parting from user generated content leaves a tremendous gap to fill. With that in mind, I thought of a few future scenario’s that each seam likely:

1. Sphere will keep doing their thing, but their technology will power AOL niche sites.

2. Sphere will move further away from user generated content; leaving Twingly to fill the gap.

3. Sphere will introduce new products using AOL’s resources, which will drive profits.

Any other ideas how things might turn out for Sphere?