A roundup of items recently posted on the FSB News page.

– Picklive has announced a free public launch of its immediate, short-term fantasy model to run alongside the World Cup. For those who like the increasing prevalence of daily and weekly fantasy games but can’t stand that unbearable wait for the day to actually end will be able to play “7.5-minute” fantasy matchups during soccer matches and change their lineups as play goes on.

– After selling FFChamps.com in 2006, cousins Ian and Jon Millman recently teamed up with Andrew Miller to buy the content-and-services provider back.

– Yahoo! is rolling out a global sports campaign to accompany the World Cup, including a pick-em style game called World Soccer 2010.

– ESPN.com’s regional sites have garnered plenty of play — particularly during ESPN broadcasts — and drawn many noteworthy writers from newspapers and websites in the areas they serve. The company has now rolled out locally focused iPhone apps to extend the targeted style of coverage.

– This London-based outfit is looking for a similarly British developer for a “fantasy football” site. We can only guess by the location that by “football” they mean “soccer.”

– The guys in charge of Fantasy Knuckleheads have put together a widget that pulls content from a number of fantasy sites. We don’t know exactly which sites are included, but it seems a fair assumption that the Knuckleheads would draw from their own list of recommended outlets.

– The “OCD Chick” is the latest addition to Fantasy Sports Ventures’ Fantasy Players Network.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to FantasySportsBusiness@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

A roundup of items recently posted on the FSB News page.

– Visitors to FantasyPlayers.com — which is owned by Fantasy Sports Ventures and serves as the online home for their Fantasy Players Network — will notice that the site is currently redirecting to KFFL.com. KFFL’s Ryan Bonini told FSB.com that this is a temporary move while the company is “revamping” FantasyPlayers.com. We’ll check back in with details on the changes once the site is back up.

– The ESPN 30 for 30 fantasy documentary Silly Little Game premiered tonight, and here’s a semi-review Steve Gardener of USA Today. (We had to DVR it here at FSB.com headquarters for viewing after a week and a half of visiting the South.)

– As part of its promotion for Silly Little Game, ESPN.com put together a quick quiz on the origination of rotisserie baseball. (I got a decent 7 out of 10 correct, without cheating. I swear on my Rafael Palmeiro rookie card.)

– Ireland-based Ubecha.com is launching what seems to be a daily-game style fantasy platform for the upcoming World Cup. The press release is short on specific details of the game, but the general description seems to be in line with the short-turnaround, quick-payout games that have been popping up all over the place on the American fantasy sports scene recently. (The name of the site and discussion of “betting” in the release exemplifies a different marketplace the one governed by the UIGEA.)

– Harsh Jain of Dream11 has this writeup on the growing Internet market in India and the growth potential for fantasy sports in that market, particularly cricket.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to FantasySportsBusiness@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

Just to head off any jokes before we get too far into this post, “tools” refers to Bloomberg Sports’ new fantasy baseball analytics offerings and is not FSB.com’s judgment of the participants …

We managed to overlook the announcement late last week, but in an interesting marketing twist for its fantasy package, Bloomberg has partnered with Fantasy Sports Ventures to put on the 2010 Bloomberg Challenge.

The “challenge” will be a 12-team “experts” league made up of six industry folks and six consumers. MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds (MLB Advanced Media is a business partner of Bloomberg Sports) will join five fantasy sports analysts with FSV ties:

– Ron Shandler of BaseballHQ.com

– Lawr Michaels of Mastersball.com

– Tim Heaney of KFFL.com

– Steve Gardner of USA Today

– Derek VanRiper of RotoWire.com

As for the remaining six slots, Bloomberg is accepting nominations through the end of the day Wednesday (send to BloombergChallenge@bloombergsports.com), consisting of only a brief paragraph about why you should be included. Bloomberg will select six from that group, and the draft will take place Monday night at 8:30. Those chosen will receive free access to the Bloomberg analytics.

The goal here for Bloomberg is obviously to put the value of their new tools on display by showing that they can enable the average fantasy player to compete at the highest level.

“One of the innovative elements of the Bloomberg Sports analytic tools we have developed is that they give everyone a chance to really excel and have fun in fantasy baseball like never before,” Bloomberg product head Bill Squadron said in the media release. “By matching some of the greats of fantasy baseball against six fans, we will find out how our tools can help regular fans play fantasy baseball like the professionals. We believe that the league will generate a great deal of interest and fun while also demonstrating how different the product we have created is in the marketplace.”

Most of us in the fantasy industry, of course, know that the only thing differentiating the “experts” from many fantasy players is the publishing of their opinions. For that reason, it will be interesting to see if Bloomberg gravitates toward less-experienced consumers for this showcase.

Either way, it’s a fun marketing idea and should be a particularly enjoyable opportunity for the six consumers who are chosen.

Beyond that, it’s also another indication of the seriousness with which Bloomberg is entering the fantasy sports space — which can also be read as a testament to this industry’s continuing growth potential.

A roundup of items recently posted on the FSB News page.

– Fantasy hockey content site SchoolYourPool.com has joined Fantasy Sports Ventures’ Fantasy Players Network.

– Fighting Chance Fantasy recently redesigned its site.

– Derrick Eckardt of FantasyEthos.com points out that the fairly favorable Web domain FantasyNASCAR.com can be had, but there are reasons to be wary if you think you want to buy it.

– This blogger thinks a fantasy art-auction league could be viable, where participants would draft artists and then score each time an artist sold a painting via auction house. Hey, who am I to judge? I played a year of fantasy XFL.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to FantasySportsBusiness@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).