Evan Williams (blogger)

Evan Williams (born 31 March 1972 in Nebraska) is an American entrepreneur who has founded several Internet companies.

Williams and Meg Hourihan co-founded Pyra Labs to make project management software. A note-taking feature spun off as Blogger, one of the first web applications for creating and managing blogs. Williams invented the term "blogger" and was instrumental in the popularization of the term "blog." [ [http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0804C&L=ADS-L&P=R16795&I=-3 Origins of "Blog" and "Blogger"] , American Dialect Society Mailing List (Apr. 20, 2008).] Pyra survived despite the departure of Hourihan and other employees, and was eventually acquired by Google on February 17, 2003 [ [http://evhead.com/2003/02/bloogleplications.asp bloogleplications: Evan Williams announces Pyra acquisition] ] .

Williams left Google in October 2004 [ [http://evhead.com/2004/10/next.asp Evhead: next?] ] to co-found Odeo, a podcasting company. In late 2006, Williams co-founded [http://obvious.com Obvious Corp] with Biz Stone [ [http://evhead.com/2006/10/birth-of-obvious-corp_25.asp Birth of Obvious Corp] ] and other former Odeo employees. Obvious Corp. has acquired all previous properties of Odeo, Inc., including Odeo and Twitter, another project started by Williams.

Obvious Corp. spun out Twitter into a separate company [ [http://blog.obvious.com/2007/04/twitter-inc.html Twitter, Inc.] ] in April 2007. Sonic Mountain acquired Odeo [ [http://sonicmountain.com/release050907.html Odeo acquired by SonicMountain] ] in May 2007.

PC Magazine named Evan Williams, Paul Bausch and Hourihan, the Blogger team as [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1744185,00.asp "People of the Year"] in 2004.

Williams maintains the popular weblog [http://www.evhead.com Evhead] . He lives in San Francisco, California with his wife, Sara Morishige, and cat, Moki.

References

* [http://edcorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?author=177 Speaking at Stanford]