Search engine Ask Jeeves has bought Bloglines for an undisclosed sum. Various mainstream coverage is here, here, here, and here. They say they won't make any major changes, at least not at first, but you never know what will happen. Rafe seems pretty bummed about it. Personally, as long as Bloglines remains free, does more or less what it does now, and doesn't go all ad-intrusive on me, I'll stay a happy customer. And I do find the prospect of a real blog search engine to be appealing. So we'll see.

UPDATE: Here's what Bloglines says about the acquisition.