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Thursday, February 26, 2009

One Last Yahoo Reorg Missive: Bartz Tells Employees What She Already Said. Again.

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Goodness gracious, make it stop!

You must know by now how much BoomTown loves internal Yahoo memos. But this is getting ridiculous.

It’s been like a flash flood after a long drought at Sunnyvale HQ today, as Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz turns on the firehose of a whole lot of communicating.

“I know you guys have reorg fatigue,” wrote Bartz in the latest email to employees about the management reorganization finally announced this morning.

Also memo fatigue at All Things Digital HQ, if you can believe it.

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Wednesday, February 25, 2009

More on Yahoo Reorg in Process: Ari and Hilary Rule, but Who Is Joel Jones?

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“It’s being changed every minute,” joked one Yahoo source about the reorg now in process at Yahoo, which is being shepherded by new CEO Carol Bartz.

Actually, it’s kind of true, as execs at the troubled Web company are being moved around the board like chess pieces, while others players are added.

According to numerous sources, mostly in Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif. HQ, things are still in flux and not completely settled as yet.

But one thing is clear: Layers are being collapsed quickly, as fewer people are in charge of more, with all roads leading to Bartz.

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Connected Life Head Marco Boerries to Leave Yahoo

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Yahoo’s top mobile exec, Marco Boerries, is departing Yahoo, according to an internal email obtained by BoomTown that he sent to some staffers on Sunday.

I have also since confirmed Boerries’s departure with company insiders familiar with the situation.

In a post on Monday on a restructuring at Yahoo that new CEO Carol Bartz is likely to unveil to the company this week–sources tell me it is now set to be announced internally tomorrow–I noted that Boerries was one of the more likely high-level execs to go.

“With a very heavy heart I have to tell you, that I will be leaving Yahoo!,” Boerries wrote, attributing his departure in an email titled “Personal Update,” to issues related to his family.

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Monday, February 23, 2009

The Yahoo Management Structure: Who Is In and Who Is Out?

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On Friday, BoomTown first reported that new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is likely to be announcing a sweeping new management structure soon, which can only mean the possibility that some existing top execs are likely to be broomed out, even as some new ones are ushered in.

“This is going to be a full-scale peanut butter recall,” joked one exec, referring to the infamous “Peanut Butter Manifesto,” which was sent around the company several years ago by former exec Brad Garlinghouse. It laid bare the problems at Yahoo, most especially a decided lack of decision-making and lugubrious levels of managers.

Here is the sticky skinny.

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Friday, January 9, 2009

Jerry Yang and Sue Decker Talk About Yahoo’s Connected TV at CES

Usually, BoomTown plays the stalker of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. But, with an interesting product to show off, this time he invited me and also Walt Mossberg to take an on-the-floor look-see at the company’s new “Connected TV” effort yesterday.

Wading into what has been a longtime dead-end for many tech companies–bringing the Internet to the television–Yahoo has struck a deal with South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung and other major television makers to put its software in televisions to link them to the Internet.

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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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Thursday, September 11, 2008

Liveblogging From Yahoo’s “Open House”: Open Ads, Open Mobile, Open Open!

BoomTown is thinking of starting a drinking game wherein the group gathered at Yahoo’s “Open House” media event this morning, takes a shot of Cuervo every time an exec says “open.”

Except, everyone would be drunker than drunk if that was the case by now, as Yahoo lays out its strategies to open its platform and all its products to the whole wide world.

That would be developers, publishers, advertisers, content creators and my mother.

OK, not her, since she cannot turn on a computer. But definitely everyone else.

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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Who’s Next to Go at Yahoo as Reorg Looms?

My special BoomTown Yahoo tip inbox is filling up fast this week from Yahoo employees–who, by the way, seem to like to use Gmail as their secret one–all buzzing about the next shoe to drop.

That clodhopper would be, of course, which major exec will leave the troubled Internet company, all due to a major reorg that is about the hit the company within the next weeks.

After the recent departure of Network division EVP Jeff Weiner and Chief Data Officer Usama Fayyad–along with the flashier exit of Flickr’s Co-Founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake–several sources tell BoomTown that Search and Advertising Technology group EVP Qi Lu is the next on his way out too.

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Monday, January 7, 2008

Kara Visits CES: Jerry Yang Emails It In

How glad BoomTown was to finally see Jerry Yang up close and personal, after our valiant but futile efforts to get near the Yahoo co-founder and CEO in 2007.

No, we’re not stalking him in a restraining-order kind of way, although I did stake a claim to a front row seat in the intimate theater at the Las Vegas Hilton for his keynote this morning at the Consumer Electronics Show, where Yang couldn’t help but see me.

Like he cared!

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Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Next Yahoo Executive Shoe–of Many–to Fall?

While it’s corporate sport to focus on the ins and outs of the departure of Terry Semel–was he pushed or did he motor out of Yahoo on his own or, the truth, a little of both?–it’s probably a better idea to look at what will come in the days ahead for Yahoo’s ranks.
Sources tell me [...]

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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.

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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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