After a while–in a BoomTown mangling of the old cliché–if you are a nail, everything begins to look like a hammer.

So, it is probably inevitable that the next thing for much-beleaguered AOL staffers to start rumbling about is 2,000 people getting laid off next week.

After all, the Time Warner unit has a long history of whacking employees. So, it is easier to assume things will not be different under the regime of the latest CEO, Tim Armstrong.

Except it’s not actually true that such massive cuts are in the offing, since–as many sources I spoke to said–Armstrong is in the early part of figuring out what to do about the cost structure of AOL, after laying out a company strategy and rejiggering management.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

Along with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s external email earlier today, the company also outlined the new management structure in another memo.

It’s pretty much what BoomTown has been reporting all week. Top-down simplification, which is another word for: Carol rules over Yahoo.

CTO Ari Balogh gets a lot of stuff as new head of products, and so does U.S. head Hilary Schneider, including mobile, as EVP of North American Region. Bot report to Bartz.

Here’s the entire memo of Yahoo’s new organization.

Read More »

Besides the more massive management reorganization that new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz could announce this week, as BoomTown reported on Friday, the Internet company’s powerful media arm might also see a drastic shift in management structure even sooner.

According to several sources inside the company, U.S. Audience SVP Jeff Dossett has been working on the changes for a while, part of an overall change in how Yahoo makes and delivers content.

Under a plan being considered, the media unit will be split into three parts: vertical programming, network programming and search monetization.

Read More »