That's what Biz 2 says, and Biz 2, by the way, has a major piece on blogging as a business, featuring a bunch of FM authors and FM itself to boot.

But back to the new competition from the Washington Post. It's not looking much like FM, but if anyone out there has any questions or is confused, please email me at jbat @ federated media dot net. Happy to chat about it.

Now, back to the other piece. I'm pleased at how much space B2 devoted to understanding FM's model. It's not an easy thing to grok, and you have to be willing to spend some time stewing in the informing history of media and marketing models. And it even has some data, which I will admit is accurate:

FM's eight-person sales force has been aggressively approaching big marketers, armed with detailed and persuasive demographics. The data has helped FM steadily boost ad rates on its sites. The average CPM doubled in the past six months to roughly $8. The aim is to get rates between $20 and $30, which, Battelle says, would put his blogs on par with sites like CNET and NYTimes.com. But thanks to the uneconomies-of-scale twist, overhead at FM sites like Boing Boing, Battelle's top act, is almost invisible compared with that of any mainline media concern.

One thing though - that 8 person sales force is about to get much bigger. Things at FM are really picking up, and I think I know why: our authors are the best at what they do, and marketers are starting to realize it.