Hot on the heels of its purchase of photo-sharing website Panoramio, Google has bought FeedBurner for an undisclosed amount.

FeedBurner allows bloggers, or anyone else with a website, to better manage RSS feeds. As well as offering ways to get blogs more widely read, FeedBurner provides statistical tools so you can see where your content is going. FeedBurner claims 431,171 publishers.

On its company blog, FeedBurner said combining its stats tools with Google's ad-serving and counting technology would give publishers better ways to promote content and make money off it. Feedburner hopes the Google deal will allow it to offer improved services more quickly to its users.

The Chicago-based company is privately owned and funded by a group of five venture capitalists. Nielsen/Net Ratings reckons FeedBurner traffic grew by 385 per cent last year.

The deal had been rumoured for some time, and the likely purchase price estimated at close to $100m.

FeedBurner's blog is here.

Google's blog is here. ®

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