Sunnyvale, Calif. - Ian Rogers, the head of Yahoo's (NASD: YHOO) Music unit, has stepped down to go work at a music-related start-up he co-founded, according to a post on his blog. Rogers, Yahoo's VP of video and music applications, will join Topspin Media, which will offer some sort of distribution service for independent artists.

Burbank, Calif. - Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Group announced on Thursday that it has promoted Jason Brenek to the newly created position of SVP, worldwide digital cinema and cinema programming. Brenek will be responsible for developing and overseeing any non-movie content, including 3D or live events, delivered to theaters enabled by digital cinema, as well as setting the company's worldwide digital cinema strategy and negotiating deployment deals around the world. Disney has taken to releasing more films in digital 3D format, such as "Chicken Little" and "Meet the Robinsons," and also beamed digital 3D Hannah Montana concerts into theaters.

Las Vegas - Gracenote, a provider of music data services, said on Thursday that LG Electronics will be the first mobile partner to bundle its Mobile MusicID and two other services in its music-enabled handsets. The LG handsets will allow users to identify songs playing at a party, in the car or even at a club, using their phones. The other features will let users identify any song imported into their phones, and seek recommendations based on the current song playing.

New York - The Orchard (NASD: ORCD), a digital distributor of independent music and video, announced that it has signed a worldwide distribution and marketing deal with U.K. independent label Gut Records. The Gut repertoire includes albums and singles from artists such as Tears for Fears, Polyphonic Spree and Rights Said Fred.

New York - IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Linden Lab, creator of the "Second Life" online virtual world, announced on Thursday that they will collaborate on the development of "enterprise solutions for security-rich, custom virtual world creation and collaboration" on the Second Life Grid platform. The platform allows organizations to create a public or private virtual environment using Linden Lab's 3D online virtual world technology.

San Francisco - Double Fusion, a provider of in-game advertising services, said on Thursday that it has signed a deal with NCsoft, to serve ads within the developer's popular massively multiplayer online game, "City of Heroes."

New York - NBC (NYSE: GE) has announced plans to launch original webisodes in July for some of its most popular TV shows, including "Heroes," "The Office," "30 Rock" and "Chuck."

Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) will lay off about 300 employees from its recently acquired online ad firm DoubleClick, or about a quarter of the company's U.S. staff, The New York Times reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the plan.

Minneapolis, Minn. - Comcast (NASD: CMCSA), the nation's largest cable TV provider, which also counts 13.2 million broadband customers, on Thursday launched a new high-speed Internet service that offers up to 50 Mbps downloads and 5 Mbps uploads -- fast enough to download an HD movie in about ten minutes.

Cupertino, Calif. - Apple's (NASD: AAPL) iTunes Store has surpassed Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) to become the No. 1 music retailer in the U.S., according to new figures from market research firm NPD Group. iTunes surpassed the retail giant based on the amount of music sold during January and February.

New York - Hip-hop artist and impresario Jay-Z is about to close a $150 million deal with concert promoter Live Nation (NYSE: LYV), that will see him leave longtime label Def Jam -- from which he stepped down as president last year -- and form a joint venture that will include recordings, tours, artist management and merchandise, The New York Times reported on Thursday. The deal follows Live Nation's announcement of a touring and merchandise deal with U2 on Monday, and the $120 million contract it signed with Madonna in 2007.

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace online social network on Thursday announced details of an anticipated new music service, a spin-off that will be a joint venture with major labels Universal Music, Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG and Warner Music (NYSE: WMG) owning minority stakes. The fourth major, EMI, is not party to the deal initially, but people involved in the negotiations told The New York Times it would probably join soon.

Emeryville, Calif. - Yardbarker, an online sports community and branded vertical ad network, announced on Thursday that it has raised $6 million in its second round of funding, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

New York - Fix8, a division of Mobinex that provides 3D avatar animation technology, announced on Thursday that it has raised an additional $2 million in its first round of financing, from South Korean wireless network operator SK Telecom.