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.

• The Guardian confirms: Bloggers are loudmouths, and Glenn Reynolds has an opinion. [Guardian]

• Apple buys land for more offices in Cupertino (having outgrown the ones pictured). I really really hope there's a giant cube involved. [Reuters]

Blogger-harrasser Chris Coulter quotes Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble's new comment policy: "I am now approving every comment here. And I will delete any that don't add value to either my life or the lives of my readers."

The TechCrunch effect: getting covered on Michael Arrington's tech blog makes business boom, it gets you into parties, it makes jerk-off Valley men treat your modeling site like a San Jose strip club. The owner of Solomodels.com wrote Valleywag this letter:

• BusinessWeek profiled little old me. Note: The Compaq Evo is being replaced by a refurbed Powerbook with working speakers. Continue sending loud and obnoxious videos. [BusinessWeek]

Spoke too soon — Six Apart already has a gang sign. The blogging service's co-founder Mena Trott throws it with a decidedly ungangly grin:

Looks like the blogging gang (sign here) has a spinoff (do gangs have spinoffs? I assume they're like CBS series). WordPress has a posse, and since June, the blogging company's fans have flashed its sign:

Yesterday, Metroblogging co-founder Sean Bonner slammed t-shirt seller Threadless for throwing up what he threw down: the blog gangsign. Then BoingBoing picked up the story and taught the controversy: Sean Bonner invented not only the blog sign, but the Bloods gang sign, and he makes five cents every time the gang (a REAL GANG. with BLACK PEOPLE) throws the sign. (It must be true! It's on a blog!)

Hammer has a blog, remember? And sure, Hammer writes his own posts on Look Look Look, but the Valley-hopping hip-hopper doesn't have time to fiddle with his links and embedded files.

A day after he told the world, Richard Ault told his friends. Technorati's product marketing director finally e-mailed his contacts about his new job at Metroblogging, even though he blogged it yesterday. I can only imagine Richard spending the day asking folks: "So how about my new job, isn't it gr— What? You didn't hear— DOESN'T ANYONE READ MY BLOG?"

Which Valley blogger took funding on April 1? This deal's not sealed, but someone's angel investor has loose lips.

Isn't this Tim O'Reilly's job? Longtime software developer and ZDNet columnist Dion Hinchcliffe gives the "State of Web 2.0" address, whether we asked for it or not. It's a monstrous, graph-choked essay, but once it hits the top of Tech Memeorandum, the boss will expect you to have some working knowledge. So to give you a brief run-down, I ran it through Microsoft Word's True-Meaning Document Summary tool:

Oh, Internet, you are so cute. Over the weekend, the Button-down-wearing White Guys of the Net made their blatantly disclaimered April Fool's Day gags:

Today
¬ Digital Rights Management Symposium: Fight the power! Or kill those commies! Well, with an Electronic Frontier Foundation member on the panel, this 2:30 PM symposium in SF's UC Hastings law school will be a touch progressive.

We're certainly not paying $2 billion for Facebook. If the price was right I'd be interested in it.

It's unsettling enough to see an official Google blogger anthropomorphize — and then interview — the 300x250 AdSense block. But when she starts projecting onto it, things get creepy. AdSense employee Suzie Dewey has the AdSense ad say:

First off, I've no idea why blogger-hater site Those Bastards tagged Robert Scoble as "Girlie Men." Not that it's insulting, more that it's conceptually confusing. Whatever.

Wasn't that New York blogger wedding so grand? Oh dear, you weren't invited? No worries, neither was I. But we can peek at the wedding of Blogger founder Meg Hourihan's wedding to designer Jason Kottke. The highlights of Meg's Flickr set:

You know those joke sites with the serious lead-up to a punchline, where the "monitor test" or "Let the computer draw you" test gives you one answer no matter what you put in? And how you should only pass on the joke with the same straight face?