Automattic, Steward of Wordpress.com, Snaps Up Longreads

In the desert of short news bites and unsatisfying blog posts, the website and weekly e-mail Longreads is a refreshing anomaly. Since 2009, the small Oakland (Calif.) company has been linking to stories of more than 1,500 words, offering a smorgasbord of great articles from underappreciated websites as well as from more established publications. Its Twitter account, @longreads, promises “the best storytelling on the Web” and is well followed in media circles.

Today the site announced it is being acquired by Automattic, the company that operates the common blogging system WordPress. Financial details weren’t disclosed. Matthew Mullenweg, the chief executive of Automattic, says he’ll add the Longreads staff of four to WordPress’s editorial team, which highlights new material on WordPress.com and the company’s mobile app. “The world cannot live on 140 characters alone,” Mullenweg said. “Longreads embodies a lot of what we really value with Automattic and WordPress.”