WEB 2.0 SUMMIT — At a panel discussion about making money in online video, Federated Media VP of sales Chas Edwards said he'd pulled checks "from a million dollars down to $10,000" for video ads on Federated's network, which includes the popular shows Diggnation and Ask a Ninja. The burning question: Who paid a million bucks to Federated, run by Web 2.0 conference co-chief John Battelle, and for what? We were unable to tackle any of Federated's execs at the jam-packed conference Wednesday. Somebody get Edwards or jbat to spill the details, and send it to us. Otherwise we'll wonder if Edwards wasn't actually referring to Microsoft's non-video advertorial deal for which Federated bloggers wrote ad copy. Why? Because Edwards also said the biggest dollars come from selling "host endorsements" rather than separate advertiser-produced spots.

The first rule of Valleywag: Never pitch Valleywag. But sometimes the temptation just proves too great. In response to a post about Google and Yelp's rivalry in local search, a MerchantCircle employee contacted us to tout the company's supposed leadership in the market, pitching the site for some Valleywag love. Well, here's some tough love. We've looked into MerchantCircle's business model .. and found nothing but self-love.