Who said the venture capital industry is sucking wind lately?

Well, it is–but not today and, especially, not Accel Partners, which sold two of its portfolio start-ups to large public companies for a total of $1.5 billion.

That would be the sale of AdMob to search behemoth Google for $750 million in stock, and the acquisition of Playfish by gaming giant Electronic Arts for about $300 million.

While Accel is not getting all that dough, it’s not a bad haul for the day.

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In a week, the entire advertising sales staff of MySpace will gather at a swanky new seaside resort about 20 miles south of Los Angeles to get a first glimpse of the fresh direction the company is preparing to take under its new management.

The beleaguered social networking site has been in the midst of an effort to reinvigorate its image, spur innovation in its product and–most of all–pull itself out of a too-long slump, even as longtime rival Facebook has seen explosive growth.

On the possible agenda: A new strategy aimed at music and entertainment; a new look; and, perhaps, a new boss for the ad sales team.

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Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave what he just had to know would be a much quoted comment to the Nikkei today, explicitly saying that the company had “begun seriously looking into acquisitions again.”

Music to the beleaguered mergers and acquisitions market, to be sure, especially after a recent uptick from other big companies pulling out their wallets again as the impact of the econalypse subsides.

According to sources, Google is working on at least a half-dozen acquisition deals, most of which are small start-ups in the online advertising and cloud-computing arenas.

That would be welcome news for many.

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Despite the challenges the music gaming industry has been facing of late–such as sales dropping, yipes, almost 50 percent in the U.S. this year–the top companies in the field are still churning out new products like it’s nobody’s business.

Case in point is a spate of new products from the Guitar Hero division of Activision Blizzard, which is coming out this fall with three separate major launches, starting tomorrow with the GH5 and including the hip-hop flavored DJ Hero in late October.

Here’s BoomTown’s sneak peek from GH’s HQ in Silicon Valley.

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Last night, BoomTown moderated a really interesting panel for an organization called Girls in Tech, titled “Journalism 2.0 RoundTable.”

Girls in Tech describes itself as a “social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent & influential women.”

With those lofty requirements–combined with the fact that I was a girl when we had yet to land on the moon–I have no idea what I was doing there.

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As reported Sunday night by BoomTown, former Yahoo exec and Quadrangle Group partner Dan Rosensweig will become CEO and president of the Guitar Hero division of gaming giant Activision Blizzard.

I chatted with both Rosensweig and Activision president and CEO Bobby Kotick yesterday about the move and where the gaming company is going in the year ahead.

“I love music and I love big brands,” said Rosensweig, whose enthusiasm for music, especially for Bruce Springsteen, is well known in the digital industry.

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Former Yahoo COO and current Quadrangle Group partner Dan Rosensweig will take over as CEO and president of Activision Blizzard’s powerful Guitar Hero franchise, according to sources close to the situation.

Rosensweig will run the hot gaming company’s division, located in Silicon Valley, for Activision head Bobby Kotick.

The pair know each other well, since Kotick served on Yahoo’s board for many years when Rosensweig was a key exec there. He’s also just the kind of consumer Web exec that Kotick has been looking for to turbocharge the largely retail Guitar Hero business online.

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Last night, well-known Internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen appeared on the “Charlie Rose” interview show, talking about the digital sector and unveiling the news that he is creating a new venture fund.

I had heard rumblings about Andreessen’s funding efforts earlier this week, with sources I talked to jokingly nicknaming it “Project A.”

Actually, Andreessen said the new firm is called Andreessen Horowitz (zzzz), because he is doing it with longtime investing partner Ben Horowitz.

“For the first time in my life, I am crossing over into the dark side,” said Andreessen.

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview I did with Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick about the state of the gaming business.

It’s a good week to focus on the gaming industry since Electronic Arts abandoned its hostile acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive over the weekend.

The move was–in part–in answer to Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, one the most popular multi-player games. This has made Activision one of the gaming industry’s largest companies, due to some of its well-known franchises, especially its hugely popular Guitar Hero, which debuted version IV at D6.

In this third video, Kotick publicly demos “Guitar Hero IV” for the first time, with the help of special guest stars Paula Abdul of “American Idol” and skateboarding star Tony Hawk.

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview I did with Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick about the state of the gaming business.

It’s a good week to focus on the gaming industry since Electronic Arts abandoned its hostile acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive over the weekend.

The move was–in part–in answer to Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, one the most popular multi-player games. This has made Activision one of the gaming industry’s largest companies, due to some of its well-known franchises, especially its hugely popular Guitar Hero, which debuted version IV at D6.

Read More »

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s an interview I did with Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick about the state of the gaming business.

It’s a good week to focus on the gaming industry since Electronic Arts abandoned its hostile acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive over the weekend.

The move was–in part–in answer to Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, one the most popular multi-player games. This has made Activision one of the gaming industry’s largest companies, due to some of its well-known franchises, especially its hugely popular Guitar Hero, which debuted version IV at D6.

Read More »

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s Part 1 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer.

The consumer electronics giant has been under enormous pressure to innovate and compete better in all its many businesses, and still has not proved it can knit them all together into a cogent whole.

In this video, Stringer talks about the next direction for the PlayStation gaming business, Blu-ray discs, the impact of digital distribution, digital changes in the movie industry, personal computers and the “joy of craplets.”

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We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s Part 1 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer. The consumer electronics giant has been under enormous pressure to innovate and compete better in all its many businesses, and still has not proved it can knit them all together into a cogent whole.

In this video, Stringer talks about how the consumer electronics giant has been recovering from recent troubled times, the challenges of the television business, what’s next for screen technology (think thin) and the prospects for Sony’s huge PlayStation franchise.

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Since I posted an interview with Social Gaming Network’s Shervin Pishevar today on the announcement of his $15 million funding, it seems only sporting to post this lively video interview I also did with his main competitor, Mark Pincus of Zynga, recently too.

Zynga, named after Pincus’s dog, is one of the two main social-gaming networks that are competing for audience by offering highly interactive games of all kinds. Its aim is to be more engaging and create a series of addictive games that users will return to again and again.

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Today, in yet another episode of the Web 2.0 lottery, Social Gaming Network grabbed $15 million in funding for its widgety gaming apps that are popular on Facebook and other social networking sites.

The round, led by Greylock Partners, Founders Fund, Columbia Partners and Novak Biddle Venture Partners, will go toward expanding its offerings, which include the popular Warbook, and also its network for other developers to create and publish online games on.

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