Google confirmed today on their blog that they are in fact buying Feedburner, but what’s notable is the way they worded it:

“we constantly aim to give AdWords advertisers broader distribution to an even wider audience of users.”

So just as I thought after the initial rumors started, one of the real keys to this deal is the advertising angle.

Google is being very smart here. While most of us in the tech world use RSS feeds now as an integral part of the Internet, there are still millions upon millions of people out there who have maybe heard the term, but really don’t know what it is and as such don’t use them – at all. As more and more devices come out that are compatible with RSS (think: your alarm clock, digital picture frames, etc….) usage is only going to go up – way up.

And just as advertising on websites has become such a huge business, advertising on RSS feeds could possibly become the next big battleground. Feedburner already had in place arguably the best advertising system for RSS feeds – Google has one as well, but it’s been in very limited testing for quite some time now…never a good sign – and so now Google has in place arguably the best system to advertise on feeds.

Needless to say, I think it’s a very good pick up for them.