Rags-to-riches success stories are few and far between these days, particularly the sort punctuated with "dot com" and "latest buzz" - two phrases that cropped up seemingly everywhere you turned only a few years ago. Which is why we're thrilled to announce that our former editor, one-time publishing mogul, general tech impresario and self-proclaimed Internet Rock Star has accomplished what none of us dared to imagine.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ben Brown sold out to the Man.

It was formally announced this week that hipster-geek-chic dating site Consumating - where discerning fans of Cheezewiz can find others who share their faux-fromage fanaticism by means of "tags" and answer silly, sexy questions like "What super powers would make your life complete?" or "Giant Robot or Radioactive Monster: Who[m] are you cheering for?", - was acquired by C|Net Networks. From their "press release," whose sense of business propriety is actually enhanced by our air quotes:

Did you know that Consumating was built by two guys on a lark, and has been run as a part-time project by one of those guys out of his house as an after-normal-work-hours hobby? A hobby! Well, no longer! We lucked out in a big way, and are very happy to announce that Consumating is now becoming part of CNET Networks - also home of Metacritic, Gamespot, MP3.com, and Webshots. We know! We thought they only worked with web sites that started with C too!

From now on, Consumating will no longer be the flipper baby of our work day. We are moving all of our junk to San Francisco, hiring a kick-ass developer to share the coding work, and, OMG, we will be working on the site full-time. Consumating doesn't need a bib anymore, mom. She can feed herself!

As a result of the acquisition, Vice President Brown, Austinist's dazzling Weekend Rounder-Upper Katie Spence and a various assortment of canines and canned goods will be relocating to a largely wallpaper*-inspired, ultra-swanky loft in the heart of downtown San Francisco. Are we jealous? You bet yer granny's ass we are!

But seriously, the rest of the press release goes a little like this:

FREE MESSAGES, NEW FEATURES, AND A PAYCHECK FOR BEN

1. Everything you can do on Consumating today - post a profile, answer questions, and send messages to all the hot nerds - is now free, free, free! Everyone can send messages to cute perl programming internet entrepreneurs without threatening their latte budget. Holy crap!

2. We'll have time and resources to focus on marketing the site and recruiting new and interesting people for you to pester. There may also be room in the budget for a Consumating party or two. More people + free messaging = hot booty.

3. Ben Brown will get paid to do this, and will finally have all the time in the world to launch all the cool features he's designed. And he's designed quite a few that he's dying to release.

CNET is going to let us continue to wear our nose piercings and large guage earrings, as well as do things like, uh, design our own site and create our own features. The way they see it, letting us do our own thing is like a good idea. Who knew we were so talented?

That's it! Everything else stays the same: same great site, same great people, same great cheese-flavored nacho-related dipping sauce. We are really looking forward to working with our new CNET allies, as they are going to let us build Consumating into the greatest site the world has ever seen. Keep your eyes peeled for new features, which will now be revealed at a much more regular pace. Consumating will be the best and funnest place to meet interesting people to date or, you know, hang out with. Or at least, the funnest place that does not involve getting drunk. But you can do that too!

The last thing that needs to be said is a big fat Thank You to all the people who are already using Consumating. You folks have made the site what it is, and we can't wait to bring you all the new and fun stuff we've got planned. Who knew there were so many cute bespectacled indie rock nerds out there looking for some action? So here it is, folks, get it while it's hot: THANK YOU!

Austinist wishes all parties liable involved the best of luck with their exciting endeavors!

Wanna work for The Man?