When is a Sphere no longer a Sphere? When it becomes a Surphace, as AOL is rebranding its blog-content engine, TechCrunch reported.

Sphere launched in private beta in 2005 and publicly in 2006, and it uses a technology that automatically finds blog posts related to whatever a user is currently looking at, with the technology integrated into more than 50,000 Websites, according to TechCrunch.

In a post on the Surphace blog, chief operating officer Josh Guttman writes:

The obvious question is why, in the midst of continued success—growth and distribution—are we changing our name? In most cases, businesses change their names in order to relaunch, restart and/or establish a clean break from their pasts. Our situation is very different. Our business is as strong as ever, and from where I sit, the future looks as bright as I can remember (brighter, in fact).

Surphace is also a name that weaves incredibly well with our 2010 product roadmap, which includes, among other things:

• S4—our self-serve platform currently in alpha (you can sign up for beta right here)

• SurphBoard—a spiffy updated editorial UI for our larger partners

• A URL shortener in stealth mode—strategic to other products

• A real-time conversation thread, showing topical surphing in motion

• And a few more that we can't yet disclose…:)