Yes I know that this blog isn't powered by the open source blogging software Wordpress :( Though millions of other blogs are.  Apparently those millions of users are worth some money, a good sum of money in fact.

Automattic, the vendor behind Wordpress has just scored  $29.5 million in Series B venture funding. According to Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg in 2007 alone Wordpress.com (the free hosting platform for Wordpress blogs) attracted 1.8 million new users that created 25 million posts resulting in some 3.2 billion pageviews.

The New York Times, the flagship of media, is joining our existing investors Polaris, True, and Radar in expanding their minority stake in the company. Automattic is now positioned to execute on our vision of a better web not just in blogging, but expanding our investment in anti-spam, identity, wikis, forums, and more — small, open source pieces, loosely joined with the same approach and philosophy that has brought us this far.

It's a big move for a company that isn't yet 3 years old but has grown up so incredibly fast.