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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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Getty Images is expanding its focus from images to other forms of licensed content, today adding Music. The Seattle photo agency announced it was acquiring Pump Audio, a specialist licensing agency for independent musicians, for $42m.

Pump Audio was founded in 2001 as a form of agent for independent musicians. The New York based company allows musicians to upload tracks which are then made searchable for potential licensing. If an Ad Exec, for example, is looking for a soundtrack to run behind a new Television commercial, the Pump platform, allows the Ad Exec to find and work with Independent musicians who otherwise may not have been on their radar. Pump maintains a catalog of more than 100,000 songs many of which might have been recorded explicitly for advertising. Pump licenses all the music in its archive for a flat fee. Last year, Pump reported approximately 80,000 placements. Click to Read More

Online game developer K2 Network has announced the closing of a $16m Series B round of venture financing.  The round was led by Intel Capital and also included monies from Greycroft Partners, Khosla Ventures, Novel TMT Ventures, BV Capital and MVP Capital.

The online gaming industry is estimated to reach $10 to 13b in revenue by 2011.  K2 Network, which was founded in 2001, and has a presence in the United States, Korea and India, is focused on so called Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG’s). The company has between  8m to 10m registered users 1 (their website and press releases have slightly different numbers) and a range of titles in its catalog.  The company provides both free to play games and premium subscription services.

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Just as Microsoft is re-branding its IPTV software, and touting the newly named Media Room, the company has bought itself a small sandbox for experimenting further with TV integration.  Microsoft has agreed to buy approximately 1% of Chinese TV and appliance maker Sichuan Chanhong Electric Co. 

At a reported price of only about $12m, the investment is pennies in a wishing well and not even a blip on radar tracking Microsoft expenditures.  (Microsoft’s 2006 Research and Development expenses exceeded $6.5b and that number doesn’t include equity investments that may provide R&D contributions).   Still, even a one percent stake in a state-backed business in China is significant.  Further, the investment provides Microsoft with more tools to explore linking consumer appliances to the PC with a manufacturing partner, and that is notable. 

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In a move largely anticipated since John Riccitiello’s return to Electronic Arts with a promise to bring change, the world’s largest game publisher (by sales) has announced plans to reorganize itself to streamline operation operations and speed to market.

The company, which previously ran game development through a large number of semi-autonomous studio units, will be divided into four distinct publishing labels; each of which will be tasked with focusing on one particular genre of gaming.   The gaming labels will be:

• EA Games – which will be home to a broad assembly of multi-platform games.  It will be led Frank Gribeau.  Its titles include Medal of Honor, the Simpson’s and others.
• EA Sports – arguably the flagship, Sports will be home to EA’s leading interactive franchises from Madden NFL Football to Tiger Woods Golf to FIFA Soccer. The group will initially be led by current EVP Joel Linzer who will act as interim group president until a permanent head is chosen.

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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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