• Ryan from Adaptive Path, inventors repackagers of Ajax, writes why AP's cooler than O'Reilly. [Second Verse]
• Zorba the Greek owns Web 27.0, y'all, so no steppin'. [Zorba the Greek]
• Why did respected blogger Thomas Hawk retract his lash-out like so: "First off I probably should not be calling Tim O'Reilly an asshole. It's not a very nice thing to call someone and it's somewhat juvenile." A reader says it's politics: "Thomas Hawk is an FM [blog ad network] member, btw. Dollars to donuts he got a call from [O'Reilly friend and FM owner] Battelle after the "asshole" remark." [Thomas Hawk's retraction]
• By the way, John Battelle is STILL NOT GOING TO COMMENT about the (totally-unfair-guys-really-tim's-away-that's-vacation-immunity-guys-guys-please-guys) O'Reilly affair, except to update and say Cory Doctorow's big-fucking-benefit-of-the-doubt post was fair. [Battelle Media]

Bigger, earlier updates: Web 2.0 (TM): The shit hits the fans [Valleywag]

Back then, Battelle was at the tech news outlet Industry Standard, claiming that he'd take over Calacanis's competing Silicon Alley Reporter. Calacanis threatened to use JohnBattelle.com to cover conflicts of interest when Battelle wrote about his investors' companies.

The two are still rivals, with members of Battelle's blog ad network FM Publishing competing with Calacanis's blog network. But that's not all the bad blood between the two media mini-moguls. Here's a guide to just one cluster of the thick web of techcest:

Diagram by Dan Lurie
JohnBattelle.com registration [Whois]

That was over fast. Yahoo's talent acquisition lead says this Tom Cruise poster is fake.

Jason Calacanis is just the next in a line of Netscape kings. Former Netscape exec Susan Mernit blogs, "It seems like Netscape has had 5 strategies—and almost as many GMs—in 5 years." So it's a real pass-fail test for Jason: fix this broken little division, or show he's just another schlub.

Federated Media Publishing sticks up a tech portal page. Commence countdown to angry non-member backlash.

Earlier on Valleywag:
Tom Cruise Audits Yahoo [Today]
Netscape is the new Digg [Thursday]
FM Publishing might add a portal page [Feb 24]

So, Mr. Forbes interviewer, when you ask about his web network, Federated Media:

Do you consider your business in competition with Google's AdSense?

And:

Has Google given you any reactions, since you're close with a lot of people there?

And:

But you represent sites that could be on the larger end of their advertising customers.

Then John Battelle's gonna have to gently spank you:

Very large company, Google. We're a tiny, itty, bitty company. I don't think we necessarily merit a lot of consideration.

Not that he won't let you keep asking, keep hearing "no," and still use the "Going Up Against Google?" headline.

Going Up Against Google? [Forbes]

But, er, one thing — why does a no-inventory ad-run startup need funding? It has ads coming in, shouldn't that be the revenue? GigaOM blogger Om Malik tells Valleywag, "I think is mostly for future growth, adding more bloggers and scaling the infrastructure."

Or, if we transcribe FM founder John Battelle's thoughts: "I have friends, they have money, I wanna play with it."

Financing News: FM Gains a New Partner [FM Publishing]

So the upside is, an FM portal page could put all your time-wasting onto one site. You already refresh Boing Boing and Fark all day, so why not have just one page to suck your life away?

Clever move, Battelle. With these powers combined (Fark! Buzzmachine! Metafilter! Boing Boing! And Ma-Ti, with the power of Heart!) the FM founder can become Captain Intarwebs.

Update: John Battelle says, yeah, they've been planning this all along.

Federated Media Publishing [FMPub.net]
Members of FM Publishing [Blog Network List]