Hot off the heels of Jerry Yang’s announcement as CEO, it seems like Yahoo! has dominated the tech blog cycles as of late.  (If two large stories could be considered “domination”, that is)  A rumoured 25% swap to acquire MySpace?  And now, a confirmed deal to purchase Rivals.com for a rumoured $100 million dollars.

I’m not going to debate the price paid out for Rivals.com — after all, unlike its other ‘new media’ properties and acquisitions, Rivals has already been profitable for the past year or so, generating (using my fancy back of the napkin math) about $18M in subscription revenue per year.

That’s pretty good.

But before I give Yahoo! a double-handed pat on the back (rarely done and hard to execute, I should add), one does wonder where this seemingly smart content acquisition will fit into the overall Yahoo plan.

You know — the Peanut Butter one.

As a bit of a refresher, in November of 2006, an internal memo was widely circulated throughout the technosphere about what Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo! Senior VP thought about the current state of affairs.  Some thought it was refreshingly candid (yours truly included), as he introduced an analogy that will probably stick with him for years — calling Yahoo!’s strategy something like peanut butter, because it was being stretched far too thin amongst a variety of disparate properties. 

Hence, the “Peanut Butter” Manifesto.

Well, amongst the widely publicized acquisitions in recent months, we have Flickr, Del.icio.us, and MyBloglogs … all social media / network plays to a greater or lesser degree.  All still floating, more or less, on their own, with a superficial integration within Yahoo! proper (although Flickr is making slow strides with a unified login system amongst other things).

Now we have Rivals.com, which isn’t a social network *per se* as its really a content platform for college sports.  Sure, its a smart move as it dove tails nicely within Yahoo!’s own sports network — but as I asked a few paragraphs ago:

Where’s the peanut butter?

How does it fit within Yahoo!’s grand strategy and vision for the future?  Or is it merely a revenue generating cog within the lumbering and discombobulated hulk that Yahoo! has become?  Or is it even a sign that Yahoo! is moving towards a more content focused, subscription oriented model?

And where do the rumours of the MySpace acquisition (for $12billion dollars), complete with a parternship with Rupert Murdoch, come into play? 

Well, lots of speculation, but I simply have no idea at this point.  But from the looks of it, one does wonder if Yahoo! has plans to morph into a social network content new media play with a freemium model thrown in for good measure.

Hell.  If Jerry Yang is in the house I’d love to know what he thinks about this.

Wait — I think he said something about striving for excellence or monetizing an audience or something … ? ;)