In an internal memo distributed this morning, Soohoo says he was planning on leaving prior to Lanzone’s appointment, and had “made a personal commitment to work through the transition” until CBS found a replacement for former CBS Interactive head Neil Ashe.

SooHoo came to CBS three years ago, when it bought his startup – Dotspotter.com. Since then he’s run the broadcaster’s CBS.com site, as well as properties like Chowhound and Urban Baby.

I’ve asked CBS what it plans to do with TV.com, the sorta-Hulu video portal that Soohoo was also in charge of, which now seems a bit redundant given its acquisition of Clicker.

No word on that, but the company did provide this quote from CEO Les Moonves: “Anthony is a terrific example of the kind of entrepreneur who helps build our business, sets us up for continued future growth, and then stays very close to CBS to make sure we’re in constant connection with the best ideas and talent in Silicon Valley. I thank him for his contributions, and look forward to his counsel in the years ahead.”

CBS hasn’t named a replacement for Soohoo, and says it has no immediate plans to do so.

Here’s Soohoo’s e-mail:

From: Anthony Soohoo
Date: Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 7:45 AM
Subject: The Next Chapter…
To: “Soohoo, Anthony”

Dear Colleagues,

After three rewarding years with CBS, I have decided it is time for me to pursue the next chapter in my life. In discussions with Leslie and Neil over the past eight months, I made a personal commitment to work through the transition until we had a new leader at CBS Interactive. Now that we have named Jim Lanzone as our new President, the time is right for me to step out and seek my next challenge.

I’ve always embraced the Taoist proverb that the journey is the reward and to say that we’ve had an amazing journey together is an understatement. I am especially proud of the product innovations and business growth that we have accomplished together. Reflecting on the past 3 years:

We’ve increased our business unit s revenue by 700%. CBS.com has increased its audience 10x and jumped from the 3rd ranked network video site to the top ranked network property for the past 27 months. We are now one of the top media properties around.
The CBS Audience Network became the fastest growing network growing video streams the past year by 206% and total minutes spent by 149%.
We’ve grown CHOW’s audience by 16x since 2008 – hitting the big time as a Top 10 food site in 2010 and winning the prestigious James Beard Award for “Best Web Site Focusing on Food”.

In short, this has been every bit an extraordinary ride and I thank you for your work in making this experience special for me, both personally and professionally. As I set off back into the entrepreneurial world, I want to extend my sincerest wishes to all of you for continued success.

Dream. Invent. Deliver.

Anthony

Here’s a whole lot of video from a panel discussion about the future of online video that BoomTown moderated last week in San Francisco.

Held at the offices of CBS (CBS) Interactive, it was organized by Andy Plesser, the kingpin of Beet.TV, the online video news site. Plesser moderated the second half of the two-hour (!!!) session, and I did the first hour.

One tweet of the event noted: “The Beet.TV just started and @karaswisher is already terrorizing the panelists.”

I beg to differ! I was strafing the giant panel in order to tame it!

The group assembled included Gregg Colvin of News Corp. (NWS) digital unit Fox Interactive, Karin Gilford of Comcast (CMCSA), Revision3′s Jim Louderback, Anthony Soohoo of CBS Interactive, Adobe (ADBE) exec Jennifer Taylor, and many, many others.

Topics included advertising, creative, innovative business models and much more about the online video space.

Here’s the full video, as well as an interview with me about my bad video practices (yes, I look exhausted, but the panel did last forever).

And I added a third video, which is a part of the longer one, in which I asked what devices or companies the panelists thought were the most promising.

The answer, for the most part: Those from Apple (AAPL), including its iPhone, iPod and, even before launch, iPad. Not surprisingly, however, given the Flash feud, Adobe’s Taylor picked the Google (GOOG) Nexus One mobile phone.

Here are the videos:

CBS paid $1.8 billion for CNET last summer, and today it is dealing with the consequences: A re-org and layoffs.

CBS execs won’t release specifics on the firings and won’t say how many people were let go altogether. So news will be coming out in piecemeal fashion for some time.

The best that I can tell, though, the cuts came throughout the company’s interactive group, from its London-based last.fm radio service through CBS (CBS) headquarters in New York to CNET’s homebase in San Francisco.

Based on the fact that CBS Interactive boss Quincy Smith flew to the west coast to quarterback the re-org this morning–and the fact that CNET was much, much bigger than the CBS Interactive group–I’m assuming that more CNET employees were let go than anyone else.

Quincy, if I’m wrong, please let me know. And CBS Interactive/CNET employees can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com.

In the meantime, here’s the new structure of Smith’s group, via an internal memo that comes from him and Neil Ashe, his CNET counterpart:

Team,

As we come to the end of 2008, we have a lot to be proud of. CBS Interactive is the best online content network for information and entertainment. Our properties are expanding, advertisers are capitalizing on our properties and their scale, and we are positioned well to continue to grow. As we prepare for 2009 and beyond, we’d like to update you on this progress, announce some organizational changes and comment on the broader market environment and how it impacts CBS Interactive.

Progress

CBS Interactive is the 8th largest Internet network in the world. Our combined traffic is up nearly 30% since we closed the merger this summer. CNET, CBSSports.com, BNET, GameSpot, TV.com, CBS.com, last.fm, and CHOW have each had record traffic within the past three months. Our commitment to our users is paying off.

Advertisers have noticed. We have recently signed and announced deals across several of our properties with Microsoft, AT&T, Intel, Bertolli, EA, and GM. In these challenging economic times, marketers are consolidating their efforts with their best partners. Our properties, our audiences, our ideas and our insights will continue to differentiate us in the marketplace.

Finally, we have contributed to and benefited from the TV and Radio divisions of CBS. We’ve done nearly 1,500 purpose-driven promotions to our properties on Broadcast TV, Radio and local TV Stations; CHOW and GameSpot content is running on the CBS Outernet; and CNET ran a major consumer campaign in markets like New York and San Francisco through CBS Outdoor. CBS Interactive is also a key partner to CBS Television Network for major broadcast events. In just the last week, we featured complementary content for events including The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the Grammy Nominations and the SEC Championship.

Moving forward, we have a lot to look forward to. Events like CES, The Grammys, and March Madness on Demand are all just around the corner. Each represent huge cross-platform opportunities where CBS Interactive will again help complete the experience with coverage on air, online, and on mobile for our audiences.

Organizational Promotions and Changes

As we enter 2009, we are making some changes to our organizational structure to capitalize on audience and advertiser overlaps. We are also making some changes to key functions so that we can realize the benefits of our position in the marketplace. These changes mark another significant milestone in our integration, as we fine-tune our organization to best take advantage of the power of our entire network.

Sports, Games and Music

We are combining our Sports, Games and Music properties into a single group led by Steve Snyder. Steve has tremendous product and leadership experience and an enthusiasm for each of these categories. In addition, Tom Jones will be moving over from CNET to head-up the sales efforts for this group. Within the group, our talented senior leaders including Jason Kint, Rich Calacci, Jaci Hays, Kevin Menard, Felix Miller, Doug Schmidt and others will report to Steve and to Tom.

Entertainment & Lifestyle

We are also moving our Lifestyle properties, CHOW and UrbanBaby, to the Entertainment group (TV.com, CBS.com, The CBS Audience Network and TheInsider.com) to capitalize on the similarities in audience and advertisers. This group will continue to be led by Anthony Soohoo with sales led by Ken Lagana. We’re excited to see the innovation that will come from this group in 2009.

Technology & News

Under the continued leadership of Joe Gillespie, our Technology & News division will bring CBSNews.com and CNET News.com into a single CBS Interactive News Group. Each site will maintain its own brand identity, while benefiting from shared resources in design, product and engineering to deliver deeper and more comprehensive coverage of major stories and events. Led by Mark Larkin, with Dan Farber as Editor-in-Chief, CBS News.com and CNET News.com will also have the opportunity to share content and collaborate on stories for the benefit of their unique audiences.

CBS Interactive Marketing

We are bringing together our key marketing functions into a new group called CBS Interactive Marketing led by Mickey Wilson. The group brings together expertise from across the organization so that we can capitalize on our biggest opportunities, and elevate the company to be a strategic marketing partner whose products, consumer insights, and ad innovations are critical to our clients’ long-term success. They will establish the company as the standard for premium content online, and define and evolve brand strategies to capture the biggest opportunities for audience and revenue growth through market planning, insights and execution.

CBS Interactive Business Development

We are also bringing together all of our business development activities. This group will be led by Mike Marquez. Mike and his team will be responsible for the development of all new partnerships, investments, and acquisitions. They will be charged with taking advantage of knowledge sharing across the whole company to ensure that we are the strategic partner of choice for the industry.

Market Conditions

As you know the general economic environment continues to be a challenge. We have always been very aggressive about managing our costs, and that requirement is even more critical now than it has ever been. We believe this new, more efficient organizational structure will produce better results for CBS Interactive, and also result in lower operating costs. It is always very difficult to make these kinds of reductions, but they come after a thorough review of how we are organized and how we operate, and what best serves our many users, advertisers and employees.

CBS Interactive is a special place because of you, and we thank each of you for what you have done, are doing, and will do to exceed the expectations of the tens of millions of people who come to our properties every day.

Today, we sit in a great position. People seek out our brands because we provide them with the information and entertainment they want and need, and marketers seek us out because of the powerful audiences we attract. We are positioned to grow in 2009 and beyond.

Best,
-q, NA