Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Yahoo and Twitter Get New Communications Heads From PayPal and Google

Big moves in the Internet PR biz, as Yahoo grabs Amanda Pires from eBay’s PayPal unit and Twitter snatches Google communications exec Gabriel Stricker.

Pires, who is currently senior director of communications and brand at PayPal, worked with new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson for many years when he ran the popular payments service. Sources at Yahoo said she would begin April 16, taking up the position of SVP of global communications that has been held by Eric Brown. He’ll apparently be leaving the company.

The well-regarded Pires comes to Yahoo at a particularly dicey time, having just announced the firing of 2,000 employees today with more to come, along with an expected restructuring next week. The Silicon Valley Internet giant is also facing a noisy proxy fight with activist shareholder Third Point and is contemplating the sale of big parts of its business. (And then there’s me, so I’ll pay for lunch, Amanda!)

Stricker, who is director of global communications and public affairs at the search giant, will be VP of communications at Twitter. I wrote him about the new job this morning without a response until tonight, after he tweeted the new job. The affable Stricker will start in a few weeks at the social communications service, where his big challenges will be explaining how Twitter is making bank and when the heck it is going public.

(Tip o’ the day, Gabe: Don’t tell CEO Dick Costolo that bloggers are funnier than he is. ’Cuz we are.)

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I’m a giant vat of creative juices.

— David Pogue on why he’s joining Yahoo