Silicon Valley impresario John Battelle was convinced his Industry Standard could bring in $1bn a year; the bubble-era tech magazine was bankrupted by his hubris, and the real-estate binge to house the mini-mogul's dreams of media empire. This time round-with a successful online advertising network called FM Publishing which represents sites such as Boing Boing-Battelle has made sure to cash in before the boom ends, reports Valleywag.

Special Valleywag Weekend Updates on the Web 2.O'Reilly shitstorm:

This year, as every year, Brian Alvey of the Weblogs, Inc. Network renewed JohnBattelle.com. UPDATE: Brian Alvey of Weblogs Inc. doesn't still own JohnBattelle.com, but because his WIN partner Jason Calacanis sold it along with the Silicon Alley Reporter, he's been listed as owning the domain ever since the first boom.

Sometimes, after Valleywag reports on things, they keep happening. Follow-ups to a few recent stories:

John Battelle loves Google. He started his book The Search by calling Google clever. (And from then on it gets friendlier.) He went to Google to give a reading of the book. Nowadays he plays a Google expert on TV.

Federated Media Publishing, the hot top-down (or bottom-up or whatever the new hot way to do things is) website network, closed its Series A funding round this week. Members like TechCrunch and GigaOM (and even FM Pub newbie Tailrank) pile on congratulations.

Federated Media Publishing is launching a portal page, according to an unconfirmed a confirmed rumor. Think 9rules, but with much bigger players. The massive blog collective (founded by former Industry Standard founder John Battelle) sells ads for Boing Boing, Fark, and a few other hefty blog titles.