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A week ago, at Sony’s annual meeting, Howard Stringer said the company’s top priority was “to restore profitability in [the] television and game businesses;” both of which lost money during the last fiscal year.  Thursday, Sony began to publicly outline their blueprint for making that happen.  At the center of it, a keystone they say, will be networking – connected entertainment appliances.

Sony is planning to spend $16.7b (1.8 trillion Yen) over three years (through March 2011).  The aim will be to become “the leading global provider of networking consumer electronics,” Stringer says.  By the end of the process 90% of Sony’s product categories will have networking and wireless capabilities. 

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Calling it a “realignment to support core strategies” Yahoo officially announced(release) the seating chart from their game of executive musical chairs. 

The reorganization will create three organizational units that  report to President Sue Decker.

The first group, named the Audience Products Division, will be lead by Ash Patel.  He was previously responsible for Platforms and Infrastructure.  He’ll oversee the management of existing and future product lines.

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Wednesday, after the market’s close, Blackberry maker Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) released earnings that narrowly missed guidance for both revenues and earnings per share (EPS).  Having never come up short before, and consistently out performed, Wall Street expected more from RIM.  The stock traded down heavily after hours.  Thursday, the market showed no mercy.   Sometimes though, bad news is actually good news.  Perspective is everything.

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At times during the past couple years Internet video sites have seemed like the fad du jour, like another bubble of inflated expectations waiting to burst.  Every few weeks there seemed to be another monstrous financing.  $10m invested here.  $20m gambled there.  Even a pledged $30+ million from time to time.  Super Deluxe. 60 Frames. Joost. Veoh.  Metacafe. Crackle. Revver. Daily Motion. Funny or Die. Hulu. This Just In. Deca.TV – Every week a new company name to add to the lexicon and the watch list. It was all part of the “next new thing.” The big gamble.

Like any new market, especially one with big opportunity, a certain amount of this speculation is understandable.  With billion dollar market opportunity, there is invariably going to be a lot of competition chasing the same trophy.  And unequivocally, all these sites were, and are, chasing just that same predictable future – the migration of television and video programming to a time-shifted, place-shifted, long-tail-wagging world of Internet distribution.

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In January, Bill Gates took the stage at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show and for the last time mused on the future of computing.   One of three things he predicted was an eventual change in user interfaces.  There will be more touch.  More motion.  More gestures.   In the future, he said, we’ll migrate away from our dependence on keyboards mice and trackballs; we’ll have more natural interfaces.

In the gaming world, that future is already here.  It began a decade ago with the introduction of a range of Japanese arcade games – virtual skiing machines and dance pads.  These new peripherals then jumped to video game consoles.  Now they’ve been carried in a new direction and lifted to new heights with Nintendo’s motion control systems in the Wii and the introduction of rhythm games like Guitar Hero (Activision) and Rock Band (EA/MTV).

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The rumor mill has a funny way of repeating itself and moving in circles until gossip eventually transitions toward fact.  Back in March, the airwaves were abuzz with the prospect that the Beatles digital debut might come by way of Activision’s Guitar Hero video game and not, as widely expected, iTunes music store.   That news didn’t pan out.  Activision revealed their G.H. pipeline and the special release title in the current lineup turned out to be a Metallica special edition.

Now, a few months later, the Financial Times is reporting on a similar Beatles story.  A rumor repeat based on new disclosures.  According to the new reports, a licensing deal worth several million dollars is in the works and could be weeks away. The parties are talking.

Fact? Fiction? Full Beatles Edition? Just a few songs licensed for the next Installment of the Game? Click to Read More

Through nearly the first 180 days, 2008 has been a busy year for M&A activity .  Today, adding to the year’s tally, movie ticketing service Fandango announced the acquisition of Movies.com from Disney.

Under the prior name mrshowbiz.com, Movies.com was launched in 2000 to provide movie summaries, facts and celebrity info.  In May, the site drew 1.9m unique visitors.

Fandango, which was bought by Comcast in April 2007, provides online ticket sales for about 15,000 movie screens around the U.S.. The site drew approximately 6.3m unique visitors in May.

The company currently splits its revenue between advertising income and Click to Read More