EMarketer predicts that the apparel and accessories category is expected to grow by 20 percent to $40.9 billion this year, up from $34.2 billion in 2011.

That beats the sale of books, music and videos, which have historically been considered the most dominant e-commerce categories — those are now expected to grow by only 18 percent to $20.4 billion this year.

The report published by the Internet market research firm today is the first time it has broken down its forecasts by category.

EMarketer attributed the gains in apparel to retailers’ improved methods for displaying products online that make purchasing clothes, in particular, less of a guessing game.

Some of the visual innovations are stunning.

For instance, Amazon.com’s MyHabit, a private sales clothing site, produces animated videos of models wearing the clothing for sale. The representations are so realistic, the fabric sways as the model struts and turns as if walking down a catwalk.

On the more whimsical side of innovations is eBay’s augmented reality app that allows users to “try on” a pair of sunglasses by layering them over a picture of their face.

But in addition to new display technology, there are also many more apparel sites for consumers to choose from. Over the last two years, the idea of private sales or flash sales — offering expensive, high-end fashion at steep discounts — has spread like wildfire.

Free shipping also plays a role since it removes some of the risk for consumers: If they don’t like a shirt or pair of pants, they don’t have to pay a fee for delivery back to the retailer.

Overall, the report is predicting another big year for e-commerce. It expects U.S. retail sales to grow 15.4 percent to $224.2 billion in 2012, which is higher than eMarketer’s previous forecast that called for e-commerce to grow 11.3 percent to $209.3 billion in 2012.

The biggest category in 2012 is expected to be computer and consumer electronics, which have a higher price point, and are expected to bring in a total of $48.6 billion.

During an interview with Radio Litopia’s “The Naked Book” Wednesday afternoon, Redmayne said Pottermore sold more than $1.5 million worth of Harry Potter books in the store’s first three days online.

Which sounds pretty good considering how long the books have been available in stores and via torrent. Indeed, PaidContent, which has done the math (and was first to note Redmayne’s remarks), figures that at an average selling price of $9.13, some 164,000 Potter books were sold over those three days.

Which was far more than Redmayne or anyone at Pottermore had expected. “We had budgeted for a much lower figure,” Redmayne said. “I had looked at the physical sales of the books, and tried to anticipate what digital sales might be like, figuring that there was a certain amount of pent-up demand. But it surpassed anything we anticipated.”

And even now, a week after Pottermore’s debut, sales continue to astound. “They’re still running at a much higher rate than I was anticipating,” Redmayne explained. “They’re still surpassing anything I’ve ever seen for e-book sales. … Everything that Harry Potter does surpasses expectations.”

In a move that AllThingsD had previously reported was coming, Yahoo said it had laid off 2,000 employees, or 14 percent of the workforce.

“Today’s actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo! — smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require,” said Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson in a statement. “Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate positions.”

While Yahoo has had periodic layoffs over the years, this one is its most significant in its history, and will also result in another large-scale restructuring of the management organization. More cuts are also likely to follow in the months ahead, due to the reshaping of Yahoo.

The latest employee action is being pushed by Thompson, who joined the Silicon Valley Internet giant in January from eBay’s PayPal unit.

“Change is never easy,” he wrote in an internal email to Yahoo employees (it is below in its entirety), in a well-worn cliché I am dead certain few appreciated hearing today from the top leader.

At an internal meeting with top staff last night, Thompson — who has gotten what seems to be a well-deserved reputation for chewing folks out at Yahoo — was more direct with the execs gathered, berating them extensively for not delivering and getting the company to this sorry point.

Ouch, Scott! It’s Easter, so it might be time for some forgiveness. (And no more ranting about my reporting to those inside Yahoo, since I have been 100 percent accurate so far. FYI, will aim for 110 percent next week!)

Yahoo said it will save about $375 million with the cuts, incurring a $125 to $145 million pretax cash charge for employee severance in its second quarter. Before the cuts, Yahoo had 14,000 staffers and has many thousands more hired as contractors.

The layoffs touch all units of the company, but the hardest hit is the product division, which is headed by Blake Irving, as well as its marketing, research and international units. Yahoo gave no details on the layoffs other than the number.

But the fate of two key parts of the soon-to-be-blown-apart unit — Yahoo’s advertising technology businesses, Right Media and APT, and its search business — is still being contemplated, as I have previously reported. Possible scenarios include a sale or a joint venture transaction for both, which employ thousands of Yahoo staffers.

The layoffs tomorrow are not the end of the road in cutting costs. Along with the likely shedding of its ad tech and search businesses, Yahoo leadership is also looking at future cuts as it evaluates current businesses, which could lop even more employees off its roster.

That said, Yahoo will be doubling down in some older and new arenas, so there would also be simultaneous hiring in the months ahead.

As wrenching as they will be today at Yahoo, the layoffs come as no surprise. Thompson had told employees in memos and also in recent meetings that “real change” was coming to the company.

Along with the trauma of the layoffs, Yahoo is also facing two other tense face-offs externally. In one, activist shareholder Third Point is waging a proxy fight for board seats and stepped up the public pressure this week; and Facebook struck back hard at Yahoo’s patent lawsuit with a counterclaim of its own.

After the layoffs tomorrow, sources say Yahoo will be announcing a new organization by next week. Thompson, along with outside consultants he has hired from the Boston Consulting Group, are making what appear to be profound changes.

Sources said that Yahoo will most likely be comprised of a global media division, one that encompasses Yahoo’s consumer products businesses and one focused on global and regional sales. There could also be a small organization of about 50 employees aimed at future innovation.

Americas head Ross Levinsohn is pegged to run the media arm, which will also include its leads/commerce businesses, such as autos; Shashi Seth — who now heads search and marketplaces — is likely to run consumer products, which will include Yahoo’s communications and search businesses.

Yahoo has already been conducting a search for a new worldwide sales head, who will also be boss of the U.S., Asia and Europe, Middle East and Africa sales regions. Rich Riley, who was recently running EMEA, is reportedly the pick for U.S. sales; Rose Tsou, who is running Asia, would presumably stay put; Yahoo is looking for an EMEA sales lead.

Some current operational execs — such as service engineering and ops head David Dibble, CFO Tim Morse, and top lawyer Mike Callahan — are likely to continue to operate as before.

One big question mark is how Chief Product Officer Irving fits in the possible new org, in which the new units get control of their product development. Irving has reportedly had several incoming job offers, although it is not clear if he has responded to that interest.

But today, the focus is on the layoffs and letting go all those employees, many of whom have worked at Yahoo for years. Even if it will result in a stronger Yahoo, as Thompson promises, it is still a very sad day in Sunnyvale.

Here is a video on the topic that I did with the WSJ.com “Digits” show today, after the cuts were announced early this morning:

Here’s the entire terse statement from Yahoo:

Yahoo! Statement

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Yahoo! today confirmed that it is taking important next steps to reshape the company for the future.

“Today’s actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo! — smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require. We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities. Our goal is to get back to our core purpose — putting our users and advertisers first — and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal,” said Scott Thompson, CEO of Yahoo!. “Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate positions. We deeply value our people and all they’ve contributed to Yahoo!.”

Yahoo! has a solid foundation — nearly 700 million users and thousands of advertisers that engage with Yahoo! properties regularly and trust the company with their data and their business. Through its restructuring efforts, Yahoo! intends to grow by responding more quickly to customer needs and competing more effectively in areas where it can win. Yahoo! has identified key parts of the business — a select group of core businesses, the platforms that support those core businesses, and the data that drives deep personalization for users and ROI for advertisers — where the company will intensify efforts and redeploy resources globally, all focused on increasing shareholder value. With a clear focus on profitability and growth, the company will be disciplined in its investments and radically simplify how it builds, launches and maintains many of its properties and products.

Today, the company will begin the process of informing employees about these changes. As part of that effort, approximately 2,000 people will be notified of job elimination or phased transition.

Yahoo! expects to realize approximately $375 million of annualized savings upon completion of all employee transitions. The company currently expects to recognize the majority of an estimated $125 to $145 million pretax cash charge relating to employee severance in its second quarter financial results. The company may incur additional charges in connection with this action. More information will be provided about Yahoo!’s future direction in conjunction with the release of its first quarter financial results on April 17, 2012.

And here is Thompson’s memo to employees, stating the obvious and with nothing new from previous statements and internal memos:

Yahoos –-

Today we are restructuring Yahoo! to give ourselves the opportunity to compete and win in our core business. The changes we’re announcing today will put our customers first, allow us to move fast, and to get stuff done. The outcome of these changes will be a smaller, nimbler, more profitable Yahoo! better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require.

Over the last 60 days, we’ve fundamentally re-thought every part of our business and we will continue to actively consider all options that allow Yahoo! to put maximum effort where we can succeed. As part of this process, I believe we have to focus to win in a select group of core businesses globally:

Core Media and Communications: Our content, media, and communications experiences must be best in class. That includes getting today’s core properties right and innovating on a next generation of great product experiences across all screens.∙

Platforms: We must make our core platforms and systems a genuine strength for Yahoo! — platforms that we can really leverage to support our massive scale, drive the deepest personalization, and boost speed to market.∙

Data: Our massive data sets must become a genuine competitive advantage for Yahoo!. We have to unlock the value in our data to allow us to really understand our 700 million users, encourage and win their engagement and trust, leverage everything they do with us to more fully personalize their experiences, and to give our advertisers the immediate insights they are rightfully demanding.

We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities. Our goal is to get back to our core purpose — putting our users and advertisers first -– and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal.

Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate jobs, which means losing colleagues and parting with friends. Today, we will begin the process of informing employees about these changes. As part of that effort, approximately 2,000 people will be notified of job elimination or a phased transition. We value our people and for those who will be leaving, we thank you for all you have contributed to Yahoo!. We will treat all of our people with dignity and respect, providing resources to help manage through their transition.

Change is never easy. But the time has come to move Yahoo! forward aggressively with increased focus and accountability. Our values have always been about treating all Yahoos with dignity and respect, and today is a day to embrace those values. This is an amazing company with exceptionally talented people and I know we will all do our best to encourage each other through this difficult period of transition.

Scott

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo’s massive round of layoffs — which is likely to impact up to 2,000 employees — is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg that will hit the storied Silicon Valley Internet giant in the months to come.

Sources said Yahoo is currently planning to announce the cuts in staff in the early morning, just as the markets open. That could change, of course, but the cuts will definitely occur within the next two days.

The layoffs, which will touch all units of the company, are expected to hit hardest in the product division, which is headed by Blake Irving.

But the fate of two key parts of the soon-to-be-blown-apart unit — Yahoo’s advertising technology businesses, Right Media and APT, and its search business — is still being contemplated, as I have previously reported. Possible scenarios include a sale or a joint venture transaction for both, which employ thousands of Yahoo staffers.

Also set to be hard hit are Yahoo’s local businesses, as well as its marketing and research divisions. While still sustaining losses, its media units will not be as badly impacted. And it’s not clear how many employee terminations will be aimed at the company’s general and administrative staff.

The layoffs tomorrow are not the end of the road in cutting costs. Along with the likely shedding of its ad tech and search businesses, Yahoo leadership is also looking at future cuts as it evaluates current businesses, which could lop even more employees off its roster.

That said, Yahoo will be “doubling down” in some older and new arenas, so there would also be simultaneous hiring in the months ahead.

But not tomorrow, which will be one of the tougher days in Yahoo’s long history of periodic layoffs. Newly installed CEO Scott Thompson had told employees in memos and also in recent meetings that “real change” was coming to the company.

That is indeed the case, which is causing massive strain throughout the company, which now employs over 14,000 and has many thousands more hired as contractors.

Along with the trauma of the layoffs, Yahoo is also facing two other tense face-offs externally. In one, activist shareholder Third Point is waging a proxy fight for board seats and stepped up the public pressure this week; and Facebook struck back hard at Yahoo’s patent lawsuit with a counter-claim of its own.

After the layoffs tomorrow, sources say Yahoo will be announcing a new organization by next week, which will create several major, soup-to-nuts units at the company. Thompson, along with consultants he has hired from the Boston Consulting Group, are making what appear to be profound changes.

Sources said Yahoo will most likely be comprised of a global media division, one that encompasses Yahoo’s consumer products businesses and one focused on global and regional sales. There could also be a small organization of about 50 employees aimed at future innovation.

Americas head Ross Levinsohn is pegged to run the media arm, which will also include its leads/commerce businesses, such as autos; Shashi Seth — who now heads search and marketplaces — is likely to run consumer products, which will include Yahoo’s communications and search businesses.

Yahoo has already been conducting a search for a new worldwide sales head, who will also be boss of the U.S., Asia and Europe, Middle East and Africa sales regions. Rich Riley, who was recently running EMEA, is reportedly the pick for U.S. sales; Rose Tsou, who is running Asia, would presumably stay put; Yahoo is looking for an EMEA sales lead.

Some current operational execs — such as service engineering and ops head David Dibble, CFO Tim Morse, and top lawyer Mike Callahan — are likely to continue to operate as before.

One big question mark is how Chief Product Officer Irving fits in the possible new org, in which the new units get control of their product development. Irving has reportedly had several incoming job offers, although it is not clear if he has responded to that interest.

Let’s hope that Yahoos who will be let go tomorrow find themselves with many new employment choices after the ax falls.

Yahoo is preparing to begin layoffs of what could be thousands of employees starting next week, according to multiple sources, and is then expected to announce a new restructuring of the company the week after.

The swirl at the Silicon Valley Internet giant has grown more intense this week, as new CEO Scott Thompson has brought in top management for a series of meetings both Tuesday and Wednesday to outline the plans.

What has emerged — although sources noted that Thompson and others communicating the pending changes said nothing was yet set in stone — is the picture of a drastically slimmed-down organization with a focus on media, advertising and new but unclear “future” initiatives.

First the layoffs: Sources said the cuts will be deep and mostly aimed at the product, research and marketing units of Yahoo, which are likely to take place Wednesday. The ultimate goal, said multiple sources, is to cut many thousands from Yahoo’s staff of close to 14,000 employees, which is actually much larger, due to contract workers not officially in its roster.

The entire cut will not take place at once, said sources, since Thompson and others are still trying to figure out how to dispense with its ad technology org and, potentially, its search business. He has been in discussions with both Microsoft and Google about this, although there are other possibilities, too.

Both these parts of Yahoo together have about 2,500 staffers, whose fate is not yet sorted out.

Also still baking is the new structure, although sources said it is most likely to be comprised of a global media division, one that encompasses Yahoo’s communications and search businesses, and ones focused on global and also regional sales. There could also be a small organization of about 50 aimed at future innovation.

Americas head Ross Levinsohn is the likeliest exec to run the media arm, while Shashi Seth — who now heads search and marketplaces — would be the obvious candidate for the the communications/search one.

Thompson has already been conducting a search for a new worldwide sales head, although one possible internal exec for the job could be Rich Riley, who was recently running Yahoo’s Europe, Africa and Middle East region.

It is not clear how Chief Product Officer Blake Irving fits in the possible new org, since much of the development could now move to the decentralized units.

Some current operational execs — such as service engineering and ops head David Dibble, CFO Tim Morse, and top lawyer Mike Callahan — are likely to continue to operate as before.

Thompson, along with consultants he has hired from the Boston Consulting Group, presented the possible plan in front of Yahoo’s senior execs on Tuesday. That was followed by more meetings with a wider range of top management yesterday, although Thompson was not as highly specific in these meetings.

In fact, according to a half-dozen sources, Thompson apparently grew somewhat testy in one of the gatherings, when asked if there was a strategy he was going to announce in more detail to the group.

(Dear Scott, these are very talented employees who love the company and who have been through the wringer and it’s not their fault that leadership has failed them, so it might be a good idea to treat them with as much respect as possible right now.)

More to come, obviously.

What is Yahoo?

While that has been the perennially unanswered question at the Silicon Valley Internet giant for many years, according to dozens of sources inside and outside the company, Yahoo’s leadership is now deeply embroiled in an intense — and sometimes very tense and fast-changing — debate over a number of critical issues about what is expected to be the most sweeping restructuring in its history.

Top executives at the company are conducting what is likely to be a lively all-day “offsite” meeting today (which is actually taking place on Yahoo’s Sunnyvale campus) to continue to discuss, among other things: How and where the company will make large-scale cuts in staff, which I have previously reported were coming and will perhaps be numbering in the thousands; which businesses to sell off and which to keep, including its ad tech unit; the correct structure for the reconfigured entity; and who will be left to run it all when it is all settled.

Also up for debate is the best course of a two-pronged effort — being led primarily by CFO Tim Morse and members of his corporate strategy team — to renegotiate its search and advertising partnership deal with Microsoft, while also engaging in active discussions with Google about it taking over Yahoo’s search business.

“Everything is on the table,” said one person. “And anything could be blown up by Scott.”

The Scott being referenced is new CEO Scott Thompson, who has become something of a whirling dervish since he arrived at Yahoo only three months ago from the top job at eBay’s PayPal unit.

If shaking up the place — as he has promised in public and internal statements, including a recent memo in which he wrote that “real change is coming” — was his aim, Thompson is certainly doing just that and more.

Along with immediately initiating a massive effort to figure out the best way to restructure the long-troubled and ever-meandering company and all that entails, Thompson has also been meeting players all over Silicon Valley for advice; stopping and then restarting negotiating discussions with Yahoo’s Asian partners, visiting major advertising clients; and engaging in talks with activist shareholder Dan Loeb about settling a looming proxy fight, while also packing the board with allies to help fend off said battle.

And, oh yes, he also took a little time out from his busy schedule to sue Yahoo partner Facebook for patent violations.

But the real action is the remaking of Yahoo in his image. To do so, Thompson has been furiously evaluating the entire company, with the help of Boston Consulting Group and a small group of execs, especially Morse.

While it is all still undecided, he seems to be leaning toward Yahoo as a drastically slimmed-down entity without a central product group and with a simplified structure that includes global units — such as media, commerce and sales organizations — which will again be in charge of the entire development of their offerings.

(I will note, since I have been covering Yahoo since near its founding, this is a structure that has been in place before. In other words, at least for dinosaurs like me, there is nothing new under the sun here.)

The changes being contemplated include, as I have written previously, the possible sale or drastic reconfiguration of its ad technology business, which will effect at least 1,000 employees. Another 1,500 involved in Yahoo’s search business will also be impacted, depending on talks the company has been having with Microsoft, as well as Google, about better monetization.

Such a structure brings up a lot of questions about how, and by whom, it will be run. To figure it out, Thompson has been evaluating — sometimes rather brusquely — his own top managers, as well as looking for new ones outside the company, such as a search for a chief marketing officer and other key positions.

Confused? Perhaps, but not for much longer, said multiple sources, as Thompson moves closer to delivering his answer to the what-Yahoo-is question.

Yahoo PR — by the way, it will not escape Thompson’s change machine, either! — declined comment.

Capstone Investments has sorted through the last few months of postings and points out an interesting difference between the two companies: Google is hiring more product people than sales people, and Facebook is doing the opposite.

Here’s Google’s hiring breakdown for the last six months:

And here’s Facebook’s:

Note that these charts don’t account for all of the two companies’ hiring — just the LinkedIn postings that Capstone has been able to track down. Google increased its employee count by 1,114 people in the last quarter of 2011, which means there’s a minimum — and likely many more — of 422 hires unaccounted for.

For context, note the huge disparity in the company’s payrolls. Google employed 32,467 people at the end of 2011, while Facebook had 10 percent of that — just 3,200 people.

Special note for professional YouTube-watchers: Capstone breaks out the hires for Google’s “emerging businesses” and finds that most of them are reserved for YouTube and Android. It also notes that a good chunk of the YouTube postings are for Asia hires, and also notes postings for “YouTube Commerce” based in Asia and the company’s San Bruno, Calif., HQ.

“The positions are aimed at growing an on-demand/paid content business, including live streaming, on YouTube — a new business line for the site,” Capstone notes. Which makes sense, because when I talked to YouTube boss Salar Kamangar at D: Dive Into Media in January, he acknowledged that the company was interested in pursuing subscription businesses. See? Sometimes you can simply ask these guys what they’re up to.

Update: When Twitter works, it’s great. Here’s some additional context via Digiday’s super-smart ad guy Brian Morrissey:

@pkafka google is a far more mature sales org. fb is way understaffed, at least according to agencies.

— Brian Morrissey (@bmorrissey) March 27, 2012

@pkafka fb is v hands off w brands. wants to be a landlord, not a hand-holder. it has MBA types more than regular sales people.

— Brian Morrissey (@bmorrissey) March 27, 2012

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock/Everett Collection)

That said, it is helpful to see that demand quantified, which is exactly what Baird Equity Research has done in its latest iPad survey. Among a group of 488 tech-savvy consumers between the ages of 18 and 34, Baird found that 24 percent of U.S. respondents planned to purchase the new iPad in the next three months. Among international respondents, that number rose to 29 percent. Interestingly, 42 percent of respondents (both U.S. and international) said the purchase would be their first tablet, while the remaining 48 percent said they already owned the iPad 2 or its predecessor.

A few more notable findings:

• 15 percent of U.S respondents and 22 percent of international ones said that they plan to purchase an iPad 2 at its newly discounted price.
• A quarter of the 59 Kindle Fire owners in the survey said they plan to purchase an iPad in the next three months. Says Baird, “We would note that the Kindle Fire was released in mid-November, marking a fairly quick turn-around.”
• Respondents who planned to purchase the 4G iPad favored Verizon and AT&T equally.
• The 16 gigabyte iPad was by far the most popular model among consumers Baird surveyed.

In case you’ve missed the sandstorm, Eric Fehrnstrom, a top Romney adviser, said on Wednesday that if Romney wins the GOP nomination, the campaign will “hit a reset button” to take on President Obama in the fall.

Fehrnstrom then added, “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.”

While Romney’s rivals have pounced on the comment — Newt Gingrich’s camp has even created a SketchyRomney app — Etch A Sketch fans have pounced on the venerable toy, buying it in droves on Amazon.com.

Politico reports that sales of the 1950’s relic shot up more than 2,000 percent on the e-commerce site, while Ohio Art Company, the maker of Etch A Sketch, saw its stock hit a 52-week high yesterday, before closing at $9.65, more than double its Wednesday closing price of $4.

Here at AllThingsD, we say: Why go for the plastic version, when you can play with a digital Etch A Sketch on your mobile appendages?

That’s right: Campaign platforms, errant Twitpics, awkward remarks — all erased with the shake of an iPad.

It’s a politician’s best friend.

For iPhone, there’s Etch A Sketch Premium, from Freeze Tag, Inc., a company that makes casual games for mobile devices and personal computers. It costs just 99 cents (or about 0.000001309367724577594 percent of the $75,609,012 Romney has raised to date).

Unlike the physical Etch A Sketch, users of this app can change the color of the toy’s frame, choose from a color palette when drawing, use predrawn shapes or a background (like Hangman), and share their drawings with friends via email, Facebook or a photo album. As with the original Etch A Sketch, you simply shake it to erase it.

But a smartphone screen is just too small for this kind of app, and the knobs of the Etch A Sketch appear to be cut off at the bottom. You can use your finger to draw, but that seems like Etch A Sketch sacrilege.

Fortunately, there’s an iPad app from the same company. This one costs $2.99, and is the real deal.

The Draw Something addicts out there can share their Etch A Sketch iPad drawings with friends over Wi-Fi. Or, users can draw alone, add photos from a photo album, use colorful stamps, share through Facebook and even access an iPod song library to set sketches to a soundtrack … like, maybe a campaign soundtrack?

For Android devices, there’s a free version of Freeze Tag’s Etch A Sketch with ads; and a 99-cent version without. There’s also the 99-cent Etch-a-Doodle app, which replicates the Etch A Sketch experience.

Those who would rather pay a more visible homage to Etch a Sketch can check out these retro red covers for mobile devices.

And if you’re feeling really ambitious, you can attempt to make a Kinect-a-Sketch, as these guys did, as seen in the video below:

(Photo courtesy of Flickr/The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis)

It began: “Yahoos: A lot has happened since I last talked to you.”

You can say that again!

Yesterday, Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson sent out an email to the troops in what appears to be an attempt to soothe the company, which has been under a lot of stress, including more high-level exec departures, board changes and more. More importantly, the Silicon Valley Internet giant is nervously waiting for a restructuring expected to hit within weeks, and also has been unnnerved by Thompson’s aggressive legal attack on one of its key partners, social networking site Facebook.

Unfortunately, the memo didn’t say much, except vaguely but definitively referencing that even more tumult was coming.

After noting that he had been making a “deep dive” into the company after getting there at the beginning of the year, Thompson said that he was focused on “what makes Yahoo special and what doesn’t work.”

The plan then? To get the company to be “aggressive and lean forward,” because “real change is coming.”

Rut-roh.

(In a related move, but not noted in the memo — which several sources said was linked to all the uncertainty around the expected restructuring and also high costs — Thompson also cancelled Yahoo’s annual global sales meeting, which was to be held for about 1,300 advertising staffers in Florida later in the month.)

“We are moving as fast with real urgency to move back to Yahoo playing offense once again,” said the Thompson memo, which was read to me by several sources, because of increased worries about the company once again hunting for leakers.

(Apparently, like his predecessor before him did unsuccessfully early in her tenure, Thompson is on a yet another pointless hunt for those who talk to outsiders. Memo to Scott: Yahoo is an online media company and not a pay-for-that-used-iPad-on-eBay outfit and the peeps there like to share.)

Back to the memo action. “Were are fundamentally rethinking every part of our business and looking at all options to put maximum effort where we can succeed,” wrote Thompson. “I’m putting tons of pressure on my leadership team … so we can move faster and more deliberately.”

He added — and the bolding is his — “the changes we make will not be incremental ones. We will make bold, fundamental changes to what we do and how we do it.”

After properly freaking the Yahoo staff out — with everyone trying to grok exactly what that meant in terms of their jobs — Thompson then went into three core things the company was going to focus on under his rule (more bolding!):

“1) Focusing intently on those parts of the business that have a competitive advantage.

2) Liberating all of us to work faster and make better decisions.

3) Thinking really creatively about how to build new businesses that leverage our trusted relationships with users.”

Those will be applied, wrote Thompson, to five key parts of Yahoo: Its core business (such as the homepage and news); platforms (such as its cloud services and Yahoo Publishing Platform); data (which Thompson said was the “single most underrated, underappreciated and underused asset, also calling it a “cornerstone for the next generation” of Yahoo); international; and an amorphous thing he called “our future.”

About that, Thompson said Yahoo would “go beyond simply protecting our core assets … we will more than just tweak what we have today … to innovate, acquire and disrupt outside our core.”

Then, without giving any specifics at all, he noted that it’s as “important to know what we’ll do as how,” before launching into three “core principles” for the company, which were all in bold caps (this dude loves punctuating, which I can appreciate!).

They are:

“LISTEN, UNDERSTAND AND PUT THE CUSTOMER FIRST.

GET STUFF DONE.”

(Thompson also underlined “listen,” as well as bolding it, in an orgy of key-shifting.)

“I learned early in my career that innovative concepts without execution are of no value,” he then said, in a classic business-bromide tone. “The Yahoo of the future has to be the organization that consistently surprises the world by how much we get done and deliver to our customers.”

The letter did reference the patent-infringement lawsuit with Facebook at the very end.

“I want to point out that this lawsuit has one simple purpose: Protecting valuable assets of the company and its shareholders,” Thompson wrote. “Others have respected and have licensed our valuable innovations and Facebook must too.”

Thompson ended by noting that “my door is open.” It will be interesting to see who has the guts to walk through it today.

Despite some industry gains from January to February, overall sales totaled $1.06 million last month, down from $1.33 billion year over year; software sales fell 23 percent to $464 million, and hardware sales dropped 18 percent to $381.4 million.

February’s best-selling software title was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, from Activision Blizzard.

While most hardware platforms posted declines year over year, “all current-generation platforms improved sales over January 2012 by more than 50 percent,” NPD said in a note.

A consistent bright spot has been the Microsoft Xbox, which was the best-selling hardware platform for the seventh month in a row. Some 426,000 Xbox units were sold in February, marking the 12th consecutive month Xbox has held more than 40 percent of the current-generation console market share.

And all eyes were on the Sony PlayStation Vita handheld gaming device, which came to market in late February. Only four days of retail sales for the PS Vita were included in this reporting period, but the device gave overall hardware unit sales a month-over-month boost. Not including the PS Vita, hardware unit sales increased by 62 percent over January, NPD said; with PS Vita sales included, the increase was 87 percent.

“More than 1.2 million PS Vita units have been sold globally since launch,” Patrick Seybold, senior director of communications at Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in a statement. “Customer satisfaction rates are very high and momentum will continue as gamers get their hands on a deep lineup of blockbuster titles that take advantage of PS Vita’s unique features, including cross-platform play with the PlayStation 3.”

In January, the videogame industry saw a double-digit decline in physical software sales, as my colleague Tricia Duryee reports, following a number of noteworthy game launches ahead of the holiday season.

Sony said Tuesday that it had sold 1.2 million PlayStation Vitas worldwide, exceeding its expectations for the device amid tough competition from rival Nintendo. Recall that Sony announced Vita sales of 500,000 at CES in January, following its Japanese launch on Dec. 17, 2011.

And this new number doesn’t yet reflect potential sales from a significant portion of the rest of the world. The Vita just launched in North and Latin America, Europe, and Singapore on Feb. 22. Presumably there’s demand for the device there, as well.

Another metric to note: More than two million games have been sold for the device to date.

So the Vita’s off to a nice start. It’s archrival, the Nintendo 3DS, sold about 400,000 units during its launch week in Japan, though it has since gone on to sell millions more.

And according to analysts, the Vita will do that, as well. Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter expects Sony to sell 4.3 million of the portable gaming consoles this year — 1.5 million in Japan, 1.5 million in the U.S. and 1.3 million in Europe.