The founders of the Weblogs Inc. Network sold their Blogsmith blogging platform to AOL (who bought WIN in 2005) last week, according to founder Jason Calacanis. Sounds like AOL paid $4-5 million. The deal wasn't public until now.

The major shareholders were Calacanis and partners Brian Alvey and Gordon Gould.

Gould was with Calacanis at the Silicon Alley Reporter, a 90s dot-com news outlet. He wanted Calacanis to sell the company; Calacanis waited too long and ended up having to sell for much less; Gould lost potential millions.

Then Gould bought into Weblogs, Inc., with most of his share in Blogsmith. So when WIN sold most every asset but Blogsmith, it looked like he'd get screwed again — especially if WIN opened up the Blogsmith platform as Calacanis kept hinting. But with this sale, the man can finally pocket some money — even if it's only a mil or two. And it looks like he did get screwed — Gould's share hadn't fully vested, so he didn't make much at all from this sale. Maybe next time, dude.

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