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The commercial race to digitize the World’s libraries has, for the most part, been a two horse race with Microsoft and Google battling to sign up the worlds libraries and gain the rights to archive and index their rare, obscure or out of print titles.

Yesterday, in what seems like a natural fit, online retailer Amazon (which started famously as an online book store) joined the race.   In partnership with high-speed scanning company Kirtas Technologies (the same company that has helped Microsoft), Amazon will begin to archive rare titles from public and university libraries special collections.   

Unlike Google and Microsoft, which are largely focusing on making the literary content available freely, Amazon will use the archives it creates to offer reproductions for sale.

The project will be administered through Amazon’s print-on-demand publishing service BookSurge which specializes in printing and selling out of print titles. Amazon bought BookSurge in 2005.

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Thanks to a time-zone related snafu, a story held in queue on a PR Wire in Europe leaked ahead of schedule.  According to the announcement, which was not meant for release before midnight Eastern Std Time but is now being reported, Yahoo acquired sports news and commentary network Rivals.com.

The acquisition is being billed as the first under Jerry Yang’s reign at Yahoo but that’s both immaterial and somewhat inaccurate. A deal with the collegiate sports-fan site has been rumored in the works for months.  In April, rumors of both Rivals being for sale and speculation (first reported on Tech Crunch) that a prior SEC investigation of Rivals CEO for securities fraud (when he was a principal at SGA Goldstar Research) might be in the way of his company’s sale, were picked up on various blogs and news sites.    

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With breaking news, details tend to trickle out well after the headlines are first published. Yesterday, Terry Semel stepped down as the CEO of Yahoo to be replaced by founder, Jerry Yang (and with Sue Decker, the long expected successor taking on the role of President).

In the wake of the first news bulletins, major outlets have begun printing the letter Mr. Semel sent to Yahoo’s board of directors. Here, we reprint that letter too:

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In breaking news, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel is stepping down from the helm of the Internet giant.  He will stay on as a non-executive chairman but otherwise be replaced by Yahoo founder, and former internet wunderkind, Jerry Yang.

Semel’s six years began with high hopes that the former Warner Brothers chairman, and his Hollywood connections,  would be the man to guide  Yahoo through the transition from Internet to Major media.  Throughout his tenure, however, Yahoo has failed to live up to the expectations and its potential. The company has been criticized for losing it’s innovative edge and failing to keep pace with Google in search.(Currently, Yahoo’s 26% of the US Search market trails well behind Google’s 49%).

While the development of Yahoo’s Panama ad-platform, and its recent acquisition of Right Media, have buoyed hopes somewhat, the companies financial performance has been lackluster so far in 2007.

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Cambridge, Ma based Internet TV and syndication service Brightcove announced it has signed a definitive agreement to become the video platform for Fox Entertainment Group’s internet TV efforts.

Under the terms of the deal Fox broadcasting, FX and its other channels will begun running programming and hosting ad-supported channels on Brightcove’s technology platform. Additionally, Brightcove’s services will allow FEG properties to manage the syndication of their programming to website affiliates and promotion their content with social media features.

While Brightcove also has a limited relationship with CBS, the New York Times, MTV Networks, and other media properties, this will be the first deal where they will act as the sole network provider for a major network.

The deal is a significant milestone for Brightcove, and arguably the company’s most significant news to date, besting even its nearly $60m private placement in January.

San Diego based internet video-sharing site Veoh has closed its third round of venture capital financing.  The  $26m Series C round was led by Goldman Sachs and also included prior investors Spark Capital and Shelter Capital Partners.

The company, which was launched in 2005, has raised approximately $41m to date.  Former Disney exec Michael Eisner who sits on the board of directors and is among the notable investors through his investment company, Tornante.  Time Warner has also invested.  Unsubstantiated speculation is putting the pre-money valuation for this round somewhere just above $60m.

Like IPTV companies Joost and Babelgum, Veoh offers a Peer to Peer video player but unlike the other two, Veoh has focused more on user-generated content and syndication than on trying to be a content destination.   Users can upload videos of differing sizes or quality levels and Veoh will syndicate them to different video destinations from YouTube to MySpace.   Unlike YouTube, Veoh can handle larger sized video files and higher quality content.   

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Fads come and go and while at their peak they often get a lot of press attention.  Babelgum and Joost are the two most mentioned names when it comes to Peer-to Peer IPTV, and both are trying to prove their marketplace is no fad.

London based,  Joost has been the initial front runner.  It was first to market, raised a large amount of capital, is signing up partners, hired a big name CEO, and even hired a talent agent. Babelgum’s PR machine hasn’t been as active in informing the world of their progress but the Ireland based company has been quietly moving ahead in preparation to compete.  A few days ago, Babelgum  rolled out its own beta offering. 

Like Joost, access to Babelgum is limited to invitation, and like Joost, there’s a lot still being developed.  The offerings are anything but complete.  Still both are far enough along to merit a side by side comparison; so here’s a first look. 

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