Jerry Yang has been steering the Yahoo ship for just one day, but the Yahoo board saw fit to go through with the acquisition of sports publisher Rivals.com, which focuses mainly on college and high school sports. Yahoo is currently ranked second in sports, with 15 million unique users behind ESPN.com with 17.5 million monthly users, according to comScore Media Metrix. Other major competitors include MSN/Fox Sports and AOL Sports. Rivals.com is 19th, with 1.4 million uniques. The acquisition is believed to be in the $100 million range. It looks like the Web giant has shifted its focus …

A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers claims that global Web spending will continue to grow by double digits through 2011, fueled by higher-speed Web connections and the increased adoption of the Web as an entertainment medium by consumers. The PwC Global Entertainment and Media Outlook report claims that spending across the globe will increase at an average clip of 10.7%, hitting $78.4 billion by 2011, a 60% rise from last year's $47.2 billion. The U.S. is currently the world's largest online ad market, and that should continue over the next four years, as Web spending rises to $35.4 billion, …

Google has prevailed in its antitrust complaint against rival Microsoft Corp. The latter agreed to change a feature in its Windows Vista operating system that Google said was anticompetitive. The out-of-court settlement means there will be no trial. Google chief complaint was that Vista had been designed to frustrate computer users who wanted to use software other than Microsoft's to search through files on their hard drives. As yet, the changes Microsoft will have to make have not been outlined in a formal report, as the Justice Department and state prosecutors squabble over the language. The Justice Department was …

Joost, the online TV service that utilizes peer-to-peer technology, is outmoded, says Dmitry Shapiro, CEO of rival video upstart Veoh. Joost is a closed system that only shows video from the producers it has deals with. Shapiro thinks Internet TV should be something more open--like the Web itself--that draws content from both professional producers and the greater online community. Later this week, Veoh will unveil a competing service called VeohTV, a P2P-based desktop application that allows you to watch any video from anywhere on the Web. What exactly does that mean? VeohTV is RSS-like in the sense that it …

Google has been working on AdSense for video, but little is reported about its progress. That may be because it's original partner, Viacom, is now suing the company for $1 billion. Big G's legal problems have opened the door for smaller guys to create the much-needed networking products that could make online video advertising a force. London-based blinkx is readying such an ad platform. Called blinkx AdHoc, the new product will launch next Monday as way to target ads alongside or in Web videos based on speech-recognition technology. The program allows advertisers to buy specific words spoken in videos …

News Corp. has enjoyed a good deal of publicity for its 2005 acquisition of the social network MySpace, and while it will no doubt pay for itself one day, it hasn't enjoyed the kind of wildfire revenue growth befitting a site that attracts 70 million users per month. Management is constantly looking for new ways to monetize, and the company's latest move could bring eBay into the fold. "We will at some point offer user generated e-commerce transactions," he said. "So if you're on your site, and you have a line of T-shirts you have designed and want to …

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel is already out, Jerry Yang in in, but neither Wall Street nor the news media is convinced the move will spark a positive turnaround. The stock has suffered badly because it's constantly being compared to high-flying Google. Yahoo may soon face an activist group that attempts to force the company into exploring strategic alternatives--a possible sale, merger or partnership. Should that occur, Yahoo might find itself in bed with News Corp., AT&T, AOL, Microsoft or Comcast. News Corp. in particular has been monitoring the situation, and might consider selling its MySpace unit to Yahoo in …

Web pundits today are left wondering what if any affect the reinstatement of Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang will have on the beleaguered Web giant. Just about everyone agrees that Terry Semel had to go-"The short answer is he screwed up," Wired said of the company's former chief. "During his six years as CEO, he let his principal competitor, Google, grow from a pipsqueak into a giant." It's a little unfair to compare Google to Yahoo. Google makes money like an old-fashioned media company: It's core mission is to provide an outlet for content--in this case, the Web's content. So …

It's high time Google got itself a new slogan. For a company of its size and ambition, the whole "don't be evil" thing sounds like a self-righteous claim to world domination. And as just about everyone in the Web business knows by now, Google's partners are starting to get angry. EBay, the search giant's largest buyer of search ads, last week became the first major advertiser to pull ads from Google. How deeply that decision affects both their businesses remains to be seen, but more importantly, says Jupiter Research analyst Kevin Heisler, eBay stood up to Google, and …

In the battle for Dow Jones & Company and editorial control of The Wall Street Journal, supermarket mogul Ron Burkle is preparing a surprise bid involving the Web giant Yahoo that would rival News Corp., General Electric, IAC/InterActive Corp. and others reported to be interested in the publishing giant. Burkle sits on Yahoo's board and is frustrated at the company's inability to compete with Google. Adding a member of the beleaguered newspaper publishing industry (although DJC's Web properties have done admittedly well) to an already-beleaguered Internet company doesn't sound like a recipe for success. But sources say Burkle is …