Japan's Mitsui & Co. Wednesday announced that it has invested in Feedster, a developer and provider of RSS search services. The amount of the investment was not disclosed, but the announcement said it would help Feedster expand its business abroad. Feedster provides an index of over 13 million syndicated RSS feeds and blogs, including more than 75,000 that are professionally published, such as those of the BBC, CNET, New York Times, and Wired - as well as millions in languages other than English, such as those from Japan.

In Japan, according to Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications research early this year, about 3.35 million people blog and 16.5 million read blogs, and both numbers are expected to double within two years.