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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

BoomTown’s Favorite Leaked Yahoo Internal Memo Ever: New PR Head Eric Brown Says Hello (and More)!

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BoomTown has had some good leaked internal memos from Yahoo, but I have never enjoyed one quite as much as this one from newly installed Yahoo PR head Eric Brown, who started today.

While it is clear Yahoo has had its troubles in understanding and offering social-networking products to its users, Brown certainly knows how to share.

Yahoo could use some of that DNA!

Here’s his introductory memo to his new troops.

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Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Yahoo Gets New PR Head From NetApp–The Internal Memo (Natch!)

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New Yahoo Marketing head Elisa Steele named a colleague from her former job, NetApp, as SVP of Global Communications at the Internet giant.

Eric Brown was the VP of corporate relations at the data storage company, on whose board Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has also served. Before that, he was at Adaptec.

And, according to Yahoo’s internal memo, Brown likes to eat ice cream in bed while reading a Kindle and surfing the Web.

Scooch over and make some room for BoomTown, Eric!

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Friday, April 24, 2009

Yahoo Hires Adobe Vet Lamkin to Run Communications and Communities Unit as Dietzen Moves to Strategy Post

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More musical chairs at Yahoo, which BoomTown predicted recently, as top execs at the company move in and out of jobs, and new ones from the outside move in.

Perhaps the most important change to occur is the replacement this week of SVP Scott Dietzen–who had been in charge of all communications and communities products at Yahoo–by former Adobe Systems exec Bryan Lamkin, several sources said.

And there’s even more…

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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Jerry Yang’s Entire Memo to the Yahoo Troops About Layoffs (Except Not the Part About Maybe More to Come)

Here’s Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s entire memo to the staff of the Internet giant about the layoffs, which took place today. There’s no need for translation, except to say–as Yang did–that it is the worst of times for any company. Except, as BoomTown previously reported, that there might be more to come, which a Yahoo spokesman told the New York Times. Here’s Yang’s whole memo.

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Thursday, September 25, 2008

BoomTown Decodes Jerry Yang’s Here-Comes-the-Weasel-Consultants Memo (So You Don’t Have To!)

Oh, this is just too good to pass up, so it is once again time for BoomTown to let you know exactly what Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang actually meant in his internal memo to employees about the hiring of Bain & Company to evaluate its troubled business systems.

Jerry wrote: yahoos,

it’s time for another update.

Translation: Yep! Still no adult punctuation! We might continue to face serious big-boy issues at the company, but we refuse to give in on our insistence on kindergarten spelling patterns.

In that vein, would you like a nice cold glass of chocolate milk before I get to the bad news?

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Friday, September 12, 2008

Yahoo Execs “Open” Up to BoomTown Video in a Blabfest!

Yesterday, Yahoo trotted out a range of top execs who were unusually loquacious at its “open house,” where the company made a valiant effort to explain an aggressive strategy to open up its platform and products.

So here are video interviews I did with a range of Yahoo’s top execs, including Audience Product Division EVP Ash Patel, Yahoo Media Group head Scott Moore, social media guru Marc Davis, Yahoo! Mail kingpin Scott Dietzen,, Connected Life EVP Marco Boerries and PR minion Brad Williams.

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About Kara

Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference. Read more »

Ethics Statement

Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.

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