I spoke with the folks at Folksonomy last week, the interview is up here.

Last Friday we had a great afternoon - 75 degree weather, about 70 pals on the FM deck, and a great time had by all at our occasional author salon. Thomas Hawk took some photos, found here...

I'm very proud to announce the news below, a partnership that has been in the works for some time, in fact, well before we announced our "Pause and Refresh" news. We're all looking forward to working with Markos and his team at SB Nation!

FEDERATED MEDIA SIGNS SPORTSBLOGS NATION TO ANCHOR NEW SPORTS FEDERATION

Contact: Jennifer Charette, Federated Media (415) 332-6955 x113

Sausalito, CA (October 16, 2006) -- Federated Media, the fast-growing network of author-driven websites including Digg, Boing Boing and Dooce, is pleased to announce that it has signed a deal with SportsBlogs Nation (SB Nation) to manage the sports-oriented network's advertising. SB Nation will become the anchor property of a new "sports federation" that will help advertisers reach some of the most hardcore sports fans on the planet.

The sports federation will mark FM’s seventh category of high quality community driven sites. "SportsBlogs Nation is the perfect anchor for this new federation, and will enable advertisers to reach some of the most affluent sports fans on the Web," said John Battelle, founder and CEO of Federated Media. "SB Nation has an established and high quality audience, and its network of sites represent the future of sports coverage online, where the fan is an active participant."

SB Nation was created in December 2004 and has grown to an average of 7 million pageviews a month. It's the largest network of sportsblogs on the Web, and has built 84 loyal and growing communities. Federated Media plans to officially launch its new sports federation in January 2007, but will begin to represent SportsBlog Nation immediately.

"Some partnerships are truly no-brainers," said Markos Moulitsas, CEO of SB Nation. "We look forward to working together to help make fan-powered sports media financially viable. Not just for us, but for so many sports bloggers offering perspectives ignored or shut out of the traditional media."

"The sports media gatekeepers have kept the fan out of the equation," he added. "Technology is breaking down those barriers."

About Federated Media
At FM, we believe great voices attract great audiences. We're in the business of supporting those voices by connecting them to great marketers, as well as providing a suite of services that let authors focus on what they do best: make compelling media. In so doing, we are creating federations of respected voices that prosper on their own terms. Current federations include Sports, Technology, Automotive, Business & Marketing, Media & Entertainment, Momentum, and Parenting.

About SB Nation
SB Nation is the largest independent sports blogging network in the world, with 7 million pageviews a month on 84 blogs, including such blogs as AthleticsNation.com, BleedCubbieBlue.com, McCoveyChronicles.com, BloggingtheBoys.com, WindyCityGridiron.com and BlogABull.com. For a comprehensive blogroll of SB Nation communities, please visit www.sbnation.com.

I really like what Josh is up to over at B2. He's asked all his editors to blog on the side, and he's even cutting them in on the revenue. Hey, good idea! Here's an interview Josh did with IWantMedia about the move.

I'll be speaking at and attending the Blog Business Summit later this month, and in preparation I did a quick interview which is up here.

We're hiring again, this time in Author Services/Engineering. The description:

Author Technical Services Engineer

We're looking for someone to help support our authors on a technical level - in short, to help our authors make their sites as good as they can be. Someone to respond to technical emergencies, to help pinpoint problems with site layout, and correct issues our authors might have with the performance or layout of their sites. As part of our dynamic tech team, you'll also be a point person for managing our ad servers and administration tools. You'll also be working on our platform, and should be comfortable building tools w/ PHP/MySQL to make your life easier when we develop new processes.

Your mission:

• Keep our authors up to date with current webdesign and development best practices.

• Work with our authors to develop tools that allow them to optimize and grow their readership.

• Build value for each author by helping to manage their partner ad networks.

• Debug and rebuild site layouts and templates to solve author display bugs.

• Set up and maintain Wordpress, MovableType, and TypePad blogging tools and widgets.

• Everyone here represents FM toward our authors – excellent communication and follow up skills are a must.

Skills and Experience:

• Expert HTML production and CSS layout, client-side JavaScript .

• PHP/MySQL database application development experience ¬– you'll also be helping to develop our admin platform, to add tools for authors.

• Should know your way around Photoshop: you'll create light site design mockups, some image production and preparation.

• Familiarity with Macintosh, phpAdsNew, phpMyAdmin, and Unix shells.

• 2-3 years developing consumer-facing web sites

• Some project management experience a big plus.

This sound like you? FM is a great place to work, and we offer great benefits, a wonderful location, and cool folks to work with. For more information, contact torrez at federatedmedia dot net.....

On October 5, it's official! That's Joe Kressaty's first day as Eastern Sales Director for FM, based in our New York office. Joe joins us as a 23-year sales veteran for Dow Jones and Factiva (a joint venture between Dow Jones and Reuters), where, most recently, he managed the 100-member Americas sales team. He's a natural leader and entrepreneur who motivates the people around him by his enthusiasm, his drive to win and his commitment to the cause. We guess we'd be OK with it if he did for FM's authors what he did for Factiva -- take annual sales past the $100-million mark! Welcome, Joe.

While we're talking about New York, we also want to thank Chris Frerecks -- a good one that got away. Chris was an enormous help in opening FM's NY office, and we're grateful for his leadership and initiative. Unfortunately Chris and his wife, Melissa, could not make the permanent move to New York from Denver. We wish him well.

A bit too much focus on the founder, I'd warrant, but very nice to have FM covered by Ad Age...

Cisco is trying something new in an ad campaign - they came up with a Wikia (the commercial version of Wikipedia) definition of "The Human Network", the catchline to their current campaign, and asked a bunch of authors to pen their own definitions. They also purchased advertising on those authors' sites. This was done in collaboration with FM, and I think it's a neat spin on what folks like Snap and Symantec have done. I contributed my own definition here. Obscure Jesuit priests? Yep, I did edit that piece in Wired so long ago....

(and thanks to Louis Rossetto for the inspiration!)