When you're interested in the latest news, where do you go first? For an increasing number of blog-savvy folks, the answer is a "meme tracker" such as market leader Techmeme. A key advantage: putting blogs on more-or-less equal footing with the mainstream media (MSM), which provides for a broader range of views and the opportunity for additional depth.

Yahoo must have noticed the trend, acquiring BuzzTracker in an effort to improve Yahoo! News (news.yahoo.com).

While Yahoo did not disclose the price it paid for BuzzTracker, sources close to the company said it bought the site–which is wholly owned by Chicago-based Participate Media–for about $5 million.

The decision to sell the business and move to Yahoo! was relatively simple. As anyone playing in the online space understands, online media is all about scale. The ability to garner real CPMs, the ability to sell ads directly, the ability to provide innovative solutions to advertisers, all depend on having tens of millions of unique visitors.

Why BuzzTracker rather than Techmeme (and companion sites memeorandum, WeSmirch & Ballbug), Megite or TailRank. Some bloggers also mentioned Sphere as a candidate. (The site started as a blog search engine and has added limited meme tracking features.)

It's not about traffic.

(Granting that Alexa is far from perfect, comparisons between similar sites can be quite useful.)

Several bloggers have weighed in:

I have to confess that while I have heard of Buzztracker, it seems like a distant also-ran in the meme-tracker game. I check Techmeme.com religiously because it is by far the best (most timely, least spam-filled, most efficient at finding new blog posts that are on topic, etc.), and also check Tailrank and Sphere from time to time, but have never paid much attention to Buzztracker. And I don't think I'm alone in those habits.

like a Techmeme for thousands of topics

if their intention is to add a Google News type aggregation and reading system to the uber-popular Yahoo News service, then perhaps a small investment in BuzzTracker's talent is worth it.

The name is also quite brandable, especially for Yahoo, which already has the Yahoo Buzz Index, and its 10 years of search trend measurement.

Beas: "I dont understand this purchase unless its just the way chosen to hire their CEO."

threz: "Seems obvious to me that the purchase is to get the people (person?) not the website over to Yahoo. Much like most of google's acquisitions."

I've known Alan for years, but we got reacquainted at the All Things D conference in May. I realized then that we share the same vision for news – providing the best news content possible, whether traditional or citizen journalism, to a mainstream audience while making the technology invisible. He's a serial entrepreneur with a history of developing new media technologies, but his mantra is "Does it pass the Mom test?" Alan has both fantastic editorial judgment and a strong business sense – a boon to both our users and advertisers.

A few other tidbits from around the blogosphere:

The price is lower than the $7 million that Fox paid for NewRoo, a similar service, in 2006.

So it looks like with adding the automatic aggregation capabilities of BuzzTracker, Yahoo news will expand from beyond a directory/human-driven news aggregation site. This will also move it into Google News and Digg territory, while Google is trying to move into the human-editorial side with the AP/AFP/PA deal announced last month.

The software is also being used as a white-label on other sites such as TVWeek.com.

Patricipate (sic) Media runs also runs Rumormill and powers the Real Clear Politics BuzzTracker located here on FoxNews.com.

Participate has said on its Web site that it will soon include user-review and discussion sites to layer over the aggregation at BuzzTracker, much like what happens on the popular Digg service.

This morning I decided to test how good BuzzTracker news results were with a music group I've been following lately with interest compared against Google News for the same query. ... Buzztracker too fat, less filling ... Google News, leaner, meaner, fresher