Every company that struggles inevitably reaches a stage in its life when managers introspectively ask: what kind of company are we? Yahoo (YHOO) in the Carol Bartz era decided it’s a media company. The company wants to be at the center of people’s online lives.

For the last two quarters Yahoo has trimmed costs and refocused to try and deliver that experience. The end is not yet within reach, but an apparently stabilizing ad market seems to be helping the cause.

There comes a point when calling each successive performance a record starts to get a little ridiculous. Apple (AAPL) crossed that threshold a long time ago but the fiscal rocket ship flying out of Cupertino isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Even in spite of lofty expectations and market acceptance of Apple’s generally conservative guidance, Apple yet again flew by the benchmarks laid down to measure its performance.

Monday, Apple’s reported revenue for the September quarter was up 25% year over year to $9.87b (the company’s second best total on record). Profits surged 47%.

[The full text of this article is published on Metue.com]

There is a transformation underway in the world of video games. Fueled by changing technology, everything from who plays, to what they play, to how they play it, is in a state of transition.

The New York Times Co. (NYT) is set to announce quarterly earnings later this week. Monday, bad news came early and by surprise.

With a need for greater cost reductions, the Times announced a plan to cut 100 newsroom jobs (8% of total) by year end. This comes on top of budget cuts and a 5% employee pay cut already in place.

Verizon (VZ), the biggest wireless service provider in the US, has been loosely linked to Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system in the past, but Tuesday the companies ratcheted up the stakes with word of a strategic partnership.

In a joint announcement (release), timed to coincide with the CTIA Wireless show, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said his company and Google plan to "co-develop a family of Android based devices … with innovative applications from both companies."

Amazon (AMZN) apologized verbally in July for inappropriately deleting copies of 1984 (and Animal Farm) from customers' Kindles. Now the company appears to have apologized with its check book.

According to court documents first reported on Seattle news site Tech Flash, a proposed settlement has been submitted to the court for the case of Amazon’s Orwellian behavior.

Web-enabled TVs are becoming more common and eventually, they or some comparable TV-to-Internet bridge technology will be the norm. In the interim, though, consumers don’t seem to have any hesitation when it comes to satisfying their video cravings through today’s distribution platforms.

On September 28th, comScore Video Metrix released its measurements (release) detailing August viewing habits.

When you talk about the magnitude of a business, there’s scale and then there’s scale. Apple (AAPL) unequivocally reached the second plateau with its App Store Monday.

In a short press release, the company announced customers have downloaded more than 2 billion applications since the store’s debut. That’s a jump of 500 million downloads since July, or an even billion since April.

Mickey is looking for some new ideas and the talent to develop them. He’s not scared to pay to get either.

Just about a week after shelling out $4b to buy Marvel Entertainment, Disney (DIS) has dug into its acquisition coffers again, this time to snag little known game developer Wideload Games.

How much weight does the iTunes music store have to throw around? A ton according to new data released from market tracking firm NPD.

Measuring unit sale in the first half of 2009, NPD MusicWatch reports Apple’s (AAPL) music store now accounts for a quarter of U.S. music sales. That’s not a quarter of digital sales, it’s 25 percent of everything.

With internet traffic and usage, there are any of number of firms that track behavior. ComScore, Nielsen, Quantcast, and Pew, to name a handful. Each tries to provide insight into what’s popular, what’s growing – where the trends are. Each can be valuable but each can have its limitations too.

From one to the next, results can often differ in the detail. And even within the results of a single firm’s measurements, a pattern appearing in a short period of time often disappears across a broader swath.

Sony (SNE) and Nintendo (NTDOY.PK) have generally been moving in different directions, one finding success while the other floundered and restructured. Heading into the current quarter, with consumer spending weak and a strong Yen threatening margins, there were hints that might be changing (at least for the very near term).

Earnings results in, it has. Both Sony and Nintendo reported Thursday and both struggled.

Micro-hoo, the nickname for Microsoft’s (MSFT) effort to buy Yahoo (YHOO) outright, was the deal that wasn’t. At the end of a long and winding road, Microsoft-Yahoo Search is finally the deal that is.

Nearly a year and half removed from Microsoft’s initial buyout offer, a crashed ad market and a new CEO later, the two rivals have joined together in a complex pact aimed at wrestling a greater share of the search market away from Google (GOOG).

Tuesday, Viacom (VIA) delivered some good news. The company said its premium movie channel joint venture, Epix (developed jointly with Lionsgate (LGF) and MGM), has signed a carrier deal with Verizon (VZ). Viacom also said it was “very pleased” with advance bidding (called “up fronts”) for commercial time on its cable properties in the upcoming TV season. The ad sector, CEO Philippe Dauman suggested, is showing signs of recovery. What was less positive, however, was Viacom’s performance in the quarter ended June 30th.

Adjusted earnings (earnings less severance charges of 3 cents per share) came in at 49 cents a share for the second quarter, the company reported. Down 23% year over year, that was just good enough to beat analyst’s consensus expectations of 48 cents (Thomson Reuters) but revenue numbers missed.

THQ Inc. (THQI) is a company still at work turning itself around but the waypoints along the trail show it's clearly making progress and moving in the right direction. A day after winning an arbitration ruling over Jakks Pacific, the Agoura Hills game developer reported a record setting first quarter.

For the three months ended June 30th, revenue soared 77% to $243.5m (conference call transcript here). Net income was $6.4m, or 9 cents a share, compared to a loss of $27.2m, or 41 cents a share, last year. Less one time charges for restructuring and stock compensation, THQ earned $6.9m, or 10 cents a share (compared to a loss of 38 cents last year).

Amidst solid annual earnings last April, French game publisher Ubisoft (UBSFY.PK) waved a caution flag and warned its year over year sales results would likely slip for the quarter ended June 30th. Maybe they should have grabbed a megaphone to broadcast the revenue warning too.

Monday, the company reported first quarter sales 12.6% below guidance.(release (PDF file))

Analysts predicted June would turn out weak gaming sales compared to last year. They got what they predicted and then some. According to NPD data released Thursday, the sector returned its fourth consecutive month of year over year sales declines, with total revenue dropping 31% to $1.17b.

The reversal of fortune has provoked some to proclaim the recession has finally caught up with the industry so often deemed “recession resistant.” Others are taking a more measured view.

Sometimes when a company says they aren’t doing something, they really aren’t. But other times, brush-offs hide another message. Sometimes, lost in careful wording, there’s a different truth. As Shakespeare famously put it, “the lady doth protest too much.” When denials are over-emphasized something is going on.

Is Apple (AAPL) hiding something behind denials a netbook is in the product queue? Some think so.

Electronic Arts (ERTS) has an agent, movie project and deals with Steven Spielberg and Zack Snyder. MTV Games is tied up with Jerry Bruckheimer. James Cameron is working with Ubisoft (UBSFY.PK). Activision Blizzard (ATVI) now has Sam Raimi, well, sort of. Activision announced Wednesday the Spiderman director signed on to produce and direct a film based on the company’s hugely popular World of Warcraft online fantasy games.

Raimi’s deal is not a game development deal like some of the other Hollywood heavies have, it’s a traditional movie contract. Still, the agreement is another demonstration of the increasingly frequent crossover between film and interactive games.

The economy continues to be a drag on earnings for many consumer technology companies but Apple (AAPL) isn’t one of them. After the close of markets Tuesday, the company reported 3rd quarter earnings of $1.24b, or $1.35 a share, up from $1.07b, or $1.19 a share for the same period a year ago.

For the quarter ended June 27th, Apple’s revenue grew 12% to $8.34b and gross margins jumped to 36.3%.