Google Ads team facing major restructure amid automation boom
Google executive Sean Downey has revealed that the 30,000-person ad sales unit is set to undergo substantial changes.
Topic: Restructuring
The last of Siri’s original bosses leaves Apple, as does ex-Topsy search exec
Departures likely a response to reorganization of Siri and AI units under John Giannandrea.
Sundar Pichai Appointed Google CEO As Google Becomes Division Of Alphabet Inc.
In a totally unexpected development this afternoon, Google announced that it had formed a new holding company, Alphabet, Inc., and that Google would be a wholly owned subsidiary of that entity. In addition, Google co-founders Page and Brin will become CEO and President of the new company, respectively, turning over daily control of Google to Sundar Pichai, who […]
Incisive Media To Kill SES Brand, Rename Conference “ClickZ Live”
SES — formerly Search Engine Strategies — is about to undergo another name change, this time to “ClickZ Live.” The news comes from an email that Incisive Media sent to various contributors. From the email: Tomorrow is a big day for ClickZ and its sister brands Search Engine Watch and SES, and as our valued […]
Yahoo To Shutter AltaVista, Axis & Several More Products
Out with the old. Out with the new. Yahoo’s latest round of spring cleaning includes the shut down of one of the web’s oldest search services (AltaVista) and one of the newest (Yahoo Axis), along with 10 other Yahoo products and services. Goodbye AltaVista Yahoo says AltaVista will be shutting down on July 8th. AltaVista […]
Yahoo Clues, App Search & Other Products To Shut Down April 1
Marissa Mayer is tightening Yahoo’s belt. Since taking over as Yahoo’s CEO, she’s spoken repeatedly on the need to zero in on being part of its users’ “daily habits.” Today, the company announced the shut down of seven products that don’t fit that “daily habit” mantra. Included in the group are a couple search-related products, […]
8 Products That Might Be On Yahoo’s Chopping Block
Yahoo’s product teams are officially on notice. Shortly after announcing Q1 earnings yesterday, new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson dropped a bomb during the analysts’ call when he said the company will be “shutting down or transitioning roughly 50 properties that don’t contribute meaningfully to engagement or revenue.” He went on to say that Yahoo’s focus […]
Yahoo Q1: Revenue Beats Expectations, Search Up 8 Percent
A short while ago Yahoo released Q1 earnings, which exceeded financial analysts’ consensus estimates. Total revenue was $1.22 billion, up 1 percent year-over-year (YoY). Net earnings were $286 million, representing 28 percent YoY growth. Total search revenue was $470 million, up 3 percent vs. last year. Search revenues (ex-TAC) were up 8 percent to $384 […]
Yahoo’s Re-Organization: Search Stays Alive, At Least On Paper
Following last week’s layoffs of about 2,000 employees, new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson announced today an overhaul of the company’s structure — and, despite concerns about the future of Yahoo search, it remains alive. At least in the memo that Thompson sent to Yahoo employees this morning. Yahoo’s new corporate structure will take effect on […]
Yahoo Confirms 2,000 Employees Getting the Axe
After several days of rumors, first reported by AllThingsD, Yahoo confirmed this morning that it’s restructuring and laying off 2,000 employees: 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 […]
Will Pending Layoffs Put Final Nail In Yahoo Search?
Whatever is left of Yahoo Search — and, frankly, that’s unclear at this point — might be gone completely within the next couple of weeks. At AllThingsD today, Kara Swisher is reporting that Yahoo is planning substantial layoffs as early as next week, with a company restructuring to be revealed the week after that. Swisher, […]
Google Labs To Be Closed As Larry Page’s Product Streamlining Continues
Is there any doubt that things at Google have changed under new CEO Larry Page? Today the company has announced the impending closure of Google Labs, its experimental playground where many popular Google products were born. In its announcement, Google says the decision to shut down Google Labs is part of its new focus on […]
Yahoo Doesn’t Replace Head Of Sales, Joanne Bradford
AllThingsD reports Yahoo has decided to restructure their sales team without appointing a new head of sales to replace Joanne Bradford. Instead, Yahoo will have several people report directly to Hilary Schneider, Yahoo’s EVP of Americas Region. “This elevates the strong talent and brings a broader set of voices one step higher in the organization,” […]
AOL To Cut Staff By One-Third
In a Security and Exchange document filed on Tuesday night, AOL plans on cutting about one-third of their staff, about 2,300 people. The filing said, “the Restructuring will include the reduction of approximately a third of the Company’s current employee base, which will be conducted on a voluntary and involuntary basis.” AOL became an independent […]
Yahoo Q1 Revenues Down, Bartz Says “Search Critical To Yahoo’s Business”
As expected, Yahoo earnings were down, about 13 percent YoY. According to the earnings press release: Yahoo! Inc. today reported revenues of $1,580 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, a decrease of 13 percent from the first quarter of 2008. Excluding the impact of currency rate fluctuations, revenues for the first quarter of […]
Yahoo Shutting Down Jumpcut Video Service
After disabling new uploads in December, Yahoo will formally kill off Jumpcut in June. More than just a video upload-and-watch site, Jumpcut allowed users to share videos and photos, creating essentially a library of “stock” clips and images that any user could include in his/her own videos. It also offered online video creation and editing […]
MicroHoo Lite And Other Creative Speculation About Yahoo’s Immediate Future
Yahoo Q1 earnings are coming up next week. There were also some recent, not-so-secret conversations between new CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about a search deal of some sort or a broader advertising partnership. And there’s a fairly credible rumor that more layoffs are coming at Yahoo, which are tied to a […]
Microsoft Cuts Live Labs Staff By Half, Will Focus On Search
PaidContent.org reports that Microsoft’s Live Labs group has been cut in half, and the remaining crew will focus only on search. The departing team members will move on to other Microsoft product groups, such as Live Search, Windows Mobile, and Microsoft Advertising. In a post on the Live Labs Blog, Microsoft downplays the changes: “…moving […]
Google To Cut 200 Sales & Marketing Staffers
Google has just announced plans to cut almost 200 people from the sales and marketing teams around the world. According to the announcement, the affected employees will be given time to find new positions at Google and/or help in locating a job elsewhere. They’ll also give severance packages to those who leave the company. Says […]
Yahoo Closes The Cabin Door On FareChase
FareChase, Yahoo’s discount travel search engine, is shutting its doors today. An alert on the FareChase web site indicates that today is the service’s final day, and encourages users to instead use Yahoo Travel. In her first conference call back in January, new CEO Carol Bartz said “everything’s open for examination” when it comes to […]
Yahoo Mobile Head Boerries To Leave, How Will It Affect Yahoo Mobile?
AllThingsD is one of several sources reporting that the EVP of Connected Life at Yahoo, Marco Boerries, will be leaving the company ahead of the anticipated management reorganization. AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher speculates that this may result in a “cut back” in mobile efforts at Yahoo: It’s unclear what the impact of Boerries’ departure on Yahoo’s […]
Yahoo CEO Bartz to Reorg for More ‘Top-Down’ Authority
It’s probably safe to say that Yahoo has lots of fans rooting for the company to succeed under the management of new CEO Carol Bartz. In my vicarious observation of Bartz I’ve come to appreciate her no-nonsense approach and sense of humor. And as could have been anticipated after her appointment, another Yahoo reorganization is […]
Google Ends Google Video Uploads, Shutters Notebook, Catalog Search, Dodgeball & Jaiku
Google’s announced they’re closing or ceasing development of a variety of products as part of an already continuing move to keep efforts focused on other products with greater usage. These include an end to video uploads to Google Video, closure of Google Catalog Search, Google Notebook, Dodgeball, the microblogging service Jaiku and the Google Mashup […]
Google Cuts 100 Recruiters; May Replace Up To 70 Engineers Due To Office Closures
The Google Blog wrote that Google may have to cut up to 70 engineering jobs. Google implied the cuts would be due to the engineers based in Austin, Texas; Trondheim, Norway; and Lulea, Sweden not being willing or able to relocate to Google’s Mountain view headquarters. Google explicitly made a point to say that their […]
SearchBiz: MSN Staff Shuffles; GOOG Gains; eMarketer On 2009 Ad Spending
AllThingsD and paidContent.org are both reporting on staffing changes at MSN. AllThingsD calls it a case of “musical chairs,” and that seems pretty accurate based on a memo sent out by Greg Nelson of the Global Media Group. Nelson himself is now under Satya Nadella, Senior VP of Search, and Erik Jorgensen, Corporate VP of […]
Microsoft & Yahoo Shuffle Business Internally
While Microsoft and Yahoo move further apart from creating Microhoo, they both continue to make changes internally with the intention of building out a better search company.
Yahoo Acquisition Architect Johnson Departs Microsoft
Kevin Johnson, who was arguably the primary architect of the now apparently failed Yahoo acquisition, is leaving Microsoft to run Juniper Networks. Simultaneously, the company is reorganizing the division that Johnson ran (“Platform Services”) into two: Windows and Windows Live + Online Services. Here’s the official Microsoft announcement from yesterday. The company announced no immediate […]
Search Biz: Yahoo Reorgs Again, Google Not Slowing Down At 10, Microsoft Buying Powerset?
There are two views of the just-announced Yahoo reorganization. An upbeat assessment sees it as an instrumental step toward realizing Yahoo’s broad platform ambitions; a more skeptical perspective sees it as yet another run at streamlining the organization in the wake of the upheavals of the failed Microsoft acquisition bid and the departures of key […]
Triage Time For Yahoo, Delicious Founder Latest Departure
Are we watching an awkward transition at Yahoo or something more like a collapse? To declare my biases openly, I hope it’s the former. Yahoo and Google need strong competitors to keep them on their toes. But what’s happening at Yahoo certainly does not look good. The company has gone through several “reorgs” in the […]
Obit: A West Coast Digerati Deadpools Ask.com
Goodbye, Ask.com. You caught my eye back in 1997 as an unusual meta search engine that asked questions to get answers. By 1998, I counted you alongside Google and Direct Hit as shining examples of what to watch in search. You’d dumped depending on others for search results and started providing answers using your own […]
IAC Cuts 8% Of Ask.com & Kills Search Engine
IAC’s Ask.com to Cut Staff, Outlines New Search Strategy from the Wall Street Journal reports IAC has cut 8% of Ask.com’s workforce, by letting go 40 people. Not only that, the Wall Street Journal says IAC is changing the strategy of the search engine to “focus to better answering search queries posed as questions.” Ask’s […]
Official: Microsoft Management Reorg Announced; Dueling Ad Groups?
We expected a management shuffle from Microsoft today, and now they’ve delivered it. The company has announced seven new senior vice presidents and seven new corporate vice presidents. I’ll focus on the search and advertising front, where we now have two different senior vice presidents overseeing advertising. Best I can tell, one’s looking after search […]
Microsoft Executive Shuffle Goes “Live”
The anticipated Microsoft reorganization is now happening. We wrote about it previously with respect to the ouster of Steve Berkowitz. Some are speculating that these changes anticipate a future integration of Yahoo into the company. But Mary Jo Foley says they were in motion well before the announced bid. (NOTE: See Official: Microsoft Management Reorg […]
Berkowitz Had Hoped To Turn Around Microsoft, But May Find Himself In “Turnaound”
According to CNET, Microsoft isn’t waiting for the Yahoo acquisition to happen before it reorganizes. Several internal groups are slated for leadership change, and Steve Berkowitz, former Ask.com CEO and current SVP of Online Services for Microsoft, is apparently part of the changes.
Yahoo Seeks To Boost Europe Operation With New Hire
According to the Guardian, Yahoo has named former BlackBerry and Orange executive Kristof Fahy to be vice president of marketing for Europe. Fahy is a seasoned executive facing a challenging time for Yahoo, which has properties across Europe that are performing in an uneven fashion. The article goes on to say, “poorly performing parts of […]
Yahoo Reorganizes, Schneider Now Sits Atop Sales & Marketing
The New York Times and PaidContent report on a new reorganization at Yahoo. Among the changes, Executive Vice President of Sales Greg Coleman will be leaving Yahoo early next year and Hilary Schneider has been promoted to EVP to lead a new group called “Global Partner Solutions,” which is now responsible for sales, marketing and […]
Yahoo Merges Search & Display Ad Teams, Karnstedt Heads Up Team
Yahoo announced that they are combining its search ad and display ad teams. As part of this move, David Karnstedt will be heading up North American sales. Karnstedt was Yahoo’s senior vice president of Yahoo’s search sales business and is now head of US sales overall. Wenda Harris Millard, Yahoo’s Chief Sales Officer in the […]
Searcharazzi: Let the Layoffs Begin
Listen up, HR managers, there’s a fresh crop of search employees on the block. iCrossing commenced a round of layoffs this week. Rumor has it that the new CFO, Michael Jackson, is not driving continued growth, but cutting the fat based on profitability of offices and accounts. As of this morning, 20-30 employees have been […]
Microsoft’s “Third Era” Of Search Begins With Departure Of Search Chief Christopher Payne
Microsoft’s top search executive leaving company from the Seattle PI covers Microsoft’s Christopher Payne reportedly leaving the company. The AP also reports similar news from its sources. Payne took over search efforts at Microsoft back in 2003. He oversaw what I’d call Microsoft’s "second era" of search, that of developing a crawler-based search engine to […]