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Groupon Updates Privacy Rules, Including on Mobile Tracking and Sharing of Personal Information

Kara Swisher — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 06:33:10 +0000

Groupon sent out emails to its users this weekend, about changes it has made to its privacy statement and terms of use.

Among the most notable changes is more information about the Chicago-based social buying start-up’s collection and use of mobile location information.

Said Groupon:

“In short, if you use a Groupon mobile app and you allow sharing through your device, Groupon may collect geo-location information from the device and use it for marketing deals to you (and for other purposes listed in the “How Groupon Uses Personal Information” section of the Updated Privacy Statement).”

In other words, if you let them, in order to improve the experience and make the Groupon Now app more useful, you’re being tracked.

This, of course, has been a dicey issue of late, most recently related to Apple and Google smartphones and what information they collect and retain.

In addition, with a pending IPO, Groupon is under all kinds of scrutiny and any big changes will be closely studied.

In addition, in its email to customers (see below in its entirety), the company said that it had broadened the definition of personal information to include your interests and habits and also that it may share that personal information with partners in new offering areas, such as travel deals with Expedia.

Groupon said it was also trying to improve readability of its consumer information and give greater transparency to its customers.

Here is the whole Groupon memo about the changes:

Wondering about Changes to the Groupon Privacy Statement?

We want to tell you a little more about some material changes we just made to the July 22, 2010 version of the Groupon Privacy Statement (the “Old Privacy Statement”) to create the new Groupon Privacy Statement (the “Updated Privacy Statement”).

In general, all of the changes to the Updated Privacy Statement were made to improve readability, provide greater transparency about our information handling practices, address some new types of relationships Groupon is forging and new technologies Groupon is using or may use, and to let you know about the privacy choices you have. Read on.

* Groupon continues to be a proud member of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. The Updated Privacy Statement contains a reference to the most current version of the TRUSTe Program Rules and includes some additional statements required by those Program Rules. As a TRUSTe Privacy Seal holder, Groupon is committed to complying with the Program Rules as applicable to its online privacy program.

* The Updated Privacy Statement replaces the phrase “Personally Identifiable Information” with “Personal Information” to improve readability and accuracy. (More on this below.)

* The Updated Privacy Statement clarifies that Personal Information is any information that could be used to identify, locate or contact an individual. This definition is broader than the definition in the Old Privacy Statement, which limited the concept of personally identifiable information to identification information in the context of certain defined identification activities. (Whew!) The broader definition in the Updated Privacy Statement reflects our dedication to protecting privacy in all areas of our business.

* The Updated Privacy Statement includes a definition of Personal Information and explains the types of Personal Information collected, used and disclosed by Groupon, namely “Contact Information,” “Relationship Information,” “Transaction Information,” “Financial Account Information,” and “Mobile Location Information.” These definitions provide more meaningful definition about the types of information we collect and how we classify information internally.

* The Updated Privacy Statement has shortened the section that goes on about how we use and disclose non-identifiable information. This change was made to improve readability so we could focus more on talking about what we do with Personal Information.

* The Updated Privacy Statement contains information on Groupon’s collection and use of Mobile Location Information. In short, if you use a Groupon mobile app and you allow sharing through your device, Groupon may collect geo-location information from the device and use it for marketing deals to you (and for other purposes listed in the “How Groupon Uses Personal Information” section of the Updated Privacy Statement).

* The Updated Privacy Statement presents Groupon’s disclosures of Personal Information in a more detailed and transparent fashion. The new “When and Why Groupon Discloses Personal Information” section of the Updated Privacy Statement details the circumstances when Personal Information is shared with third parties in a comprehensive, bulleted-list format. This section reinforces Groupon’s commitment to protect privacy by generally limiting disclosures of Personal Information to our affiliates and services providers and to those merchants and business partners with whom our users interact.

* The Updated Privacy Statement omits the section in the Old Privacy Statement regarding disclosures of Personal Information to Google for remarketing purposes. Groupon does not provide Personal Information to Google for remarketing.

The Old Privacy Statement’s section on “Data Tracking” has been replaced with an expanded section on “Cookies and Related Technologies” to provide greater transparency around data collection technologies. This section contains information about all of the ways that we collect information using automated technologies, including cookies, pixel tags, web beacons, browser analysis tools, and web logs. The section is designed to educate readers about the types of data collected by each technology as well as how the data is used by Groupon. The Updated Privacy Statement clarifies that if automatically-collected data is associated with Personal Information, it is protected by the Updated Privacy Statement. This section also provides information about third party advertising relationships in a more readable form and includes a new paragraph regarding our relationship with Omniture.

* The Updated Privacy Statement contains an expanded section on user choice. The “Your Choices” section in the Updated Privacy Statement provides readers with information on many different types of privacy choices that they can make, along with instructions for exercising the choice. This section also consolidates information on choices that was distributed throughout the Old Privacy Statement and contains a new link to the TRUSTe preferences page.

* The Updated Privacy Statement’s section on “Security of Personal Information” has been streamlined to more-simply state our commitment to maintaining a reasonable information security program with expected administrative, technical and physical controls.

* The Old Privacy Statement’s section “Updating and Correcting Personal Information” has been replaced with a new section “Accessing and Correcting Personal Information.” This section has been revised to improve readability and clarify the processes by which users can access, update and delete their Personal Information. This section of the Updated Privacy Statement also contains a new paragraph regarding data retention. This paragraph was added for clarity and to comply with the TRUSTe Program Rules.

* The Updated Privacy Statement contains a new section giving “Notice to Residents of Countries Outside of the United States of America.” This section educates international users about the fact that Groupon is based in the U.S. so Personal Information may be transferred to the U.S. for processing.

* The “Miscellaneous Privacy Issues” section in the Old Privacy Statement has been deleted and the content it contains has been included in more appropriate, descriptive sections elsewhere in the policy. Also, we omitted the section discussing children’s information because Groupon is not designed for children and the Groupon deals are not offered to individuals under the age of majority in their states of residence. See our Terms of Use.

* The Updated Privacy Statement introduces a new contact mechanism for privacy-related inquiries: privacy@groupon.com. While general customer service questions should still be directed to support@groupon.com, the new address provides a way for us to respond to questions that our users have specifically about the privacy of their Personal Information.

And here is the email sent to users, titled “Updates to Privacy Statement and Terms of Use”:

We wanted to let you know that we’ve updated both our Privacy Statement and our Terms of Use. These new terms, which affect all Groupon users, accommodate our new products and services that allow us to offer you more relevant deals.

If you don’t feel like wading through long legal documents, here’s a summary of the notable changes, in plain English:

We’ve clarified that Groupon Now! and our other mobile apps may collect geo-location data. This lets us present you offers that are close by. See Sections 1 and 5 of the Privacy Statement.

We’ve broadened the definition of “personal information” to include your interests and habits, and provided additional details about how we collect and use your information. We’ve done this so that we can better understand what types of offers you’ll find valuable. See Section 1 of the Privacy Statement.

You may know that we’ve started working with partners to offer Groupon users new deal categories — for example, travel deals with Expedia. Our new privacy statement explains that we may share your personal information with these partners if you subscribe to special communications or buy deals in these new deal categories. See Section 4 of the Privacy Statement.

We’ve updated our Terms of Use to help you understand the expiration policies for different vouchers, including Groupon NOW! vouchers. This explains, for example, that if you don’t use a Groupon NOW! voucher within 30 days we’ll refund the purchase amount. See Section 7 of the Terms of Use.

We also clarified our expectations to ensure that our customers and visitors use the services on our website in a way that keeps the experience good for everyone. For example, we’ve prohibited abusive practices like opening multiple accounts, submitting false information and other practices that we think detract from everyone’s experience with us. See Section 5 of the Terms of Use.

Liveblogging Demand Media's Q1 Earnings: Perky Perfecting!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 05 May 2011 21:13:31 +0000

Today, after Demand Media beat Wall Street expectations, its execs got on the horn with investors to explain how it plans to beat the Panda.

That would be the beastly name for Google’s rejiggering of its search algorithm, in order to rid search results of poor quality content.

Along with many other sites, Demand has gotten smacked by its raging paw.

Still, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company reported revenue of $79.5 million and six cents a share in adjusted net income.

Wall Street was expecting the company to report about $69.6 million in revenue for the three months, with four cents a share in adjusted profits.

On a GAAP basis, net loss per share was 13 cents compared to 94 cents a year ago.

Here’s the liveblog of the conference call:

2 pm PT: Demand’s investor relations dude came on and I immediately tuned out until CEO Richard Rosenblatt got on the line to talk about the results.

He was as perky as ever, launching right into the meat of the situation–how Demand was going to pretty up its offerings, such as a redesign of its flagship eHow site and its new editorial arrangement with another perky person, food lady Rachael Ray and the also perky fashionista/talk show lady Tyra Banks.

Gone will be user-generated content that Demand used to let people post at will on its eHow site that was, well, less than good.

As in, bad.

Instead, it’s “curation,” “editorial innovation” and feedback cycles.

We old-timers like to call that journalism and copyediting, complete with mean old editors who spiked said copy when it was crappy.

“Let me be clear,” said Rosenblatt, the Google changes did negatively impact Demand’s traffic. But Rosenblatt said the company dug into its content and has been improving it since.

2:17 pm: Now it was CFO Charles Hillard reading the results themselves. I am sorry, Mr. Finance Guy, but I can read it myself, so this is always the time in earnings calls when I check out and spend my time improving my content.

So when I heard words such as “stock-based comp,” I moved on to fixing all the typos that a very nice reader alerted me to, since I was writing too quickly.

Then, I briefly considered writing a high-quality post for eHow on how to write earnings and fix typos at the same time. I am that good.

2:30 pm: The CFO dude finished up and the Q&A with analysts started.

All Panda questions, natch!

Rosenblatt seemed calm, cool and collected.

“We think on this one, they did a very good job,” he said of Google’s search-fixing efforts, trying to soothe the savage beast. “We all continue to evolve.”

Which translated to: Google says jump and we say: “How high?”

Which is then followed by: “Please sir, can I have some more (traffic)?”

Demand Media About Latest Google Algo Impact: Move on, Nothing to See Here

Kara Swisher — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 06:29:03 +0000

Tonight, Demand Media–in reaction to a new study showing that its flagship eHow site had now gotten much more negatively impacted by Google’s rejiggering of its search algorithm than previously–released a statement and blog post about the tempest.

In it, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company reaffirmed its outlook for fiscal year 2011, noting, in part:

“Certain third parties that have published reports attempting to estimate the effect of recent search engine algorithm changes made by Google on traffic to the Company’s owned and operated websites have significantly overstated the negative impact of those changes on traffic to eHow.com, as compared to the Company’s directly measured internal data.”

The company, though, declined to give specific details about the impact of Google’s attempt to clean up its search results by tweaking its algorithms to cut out poorly made material from so-called “content farms.”

While others had apparently been initially impacted by Google’s first foray, such as Yahoo’s Associated Content unit, Demand had not been.

That is, until a recent Sistrix poll (see chart below), showing eHow has now been hurt badly by even more Google search changes, codenamed Panda.

While acknowledging a decline in search traffic on eHow from the Google changes, Demand said the Sistrix data was way off.

In a blog post, Larry Fitzgibbon, Demand’s EVP of Media and Operations, wrote, in part:

“However, recent third-party reports attempting to estimate the impact to our search driven traffic, including one projecting a 2/3rds decline in eHow.com traffic, are so significantly overstated that we decided to comment.”

When Google began making changes to its search formula, Demand CEO Richard Rosenblatt told MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka in an interview that its relationship with Google was all sunshine and roses.

When asked how its relationship with Google was, Rosenblatt said:

“This is why our partnership with Google makes sense. 1) We help them fill the gaps in their index, where they don’t have quality content. 2) We’re the largest supplier of all video to YouTube, over two billion views and 3) we’re a large AdSense partner. So our relationship is synergistic, and it’s a great partnership. And it’s a partnership that we’re excited to continue to expand.”

It will be interesting to see how he feels now.

Here are both Demand’s official press release and blog below:

Demand Media Reaffirms Outlook for Fiscal Year 2011

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Apr 18, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE)

Demand Media, Inc. (NYSE: DMD), a leading content and social media company, announced today that it is reaffirming its financial outlook for fiscal year 2011 that it previously provided on February 22, 2011.

Certain third parties that have published reports attempting to estimate the effect of recent search engine algorithm changes made by Google on traffic to the Company’s owned and operated websites have significantly overstated the negative impact of those changes on traffic to eHow.com, as compared to the Company’s directly measured internal data. Recent search engine algorithm changes have negatively impacted search driven traffic to some of our websites, including eHow.com, resulting in moderately lower year-to-date page view growth for the Company’s owned and operated Content & Media properties compared to page view growth rates before the algorithm changes. Nevertheless, the Company currently expects that its year-over-year page view growth across its owned and operated Content & Media properties in the second quarter of 2011 will be comparable to, or greater than, the year-over-year page view growth achieved in the second quarter of 2010.

As previously announced, the Company will report its first quarter 2011 financial results on May 5, 2011. The Company will host a conference call to discuss the results at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (2:00 p.m. Pacific Time). A live webcast of the conference call will also be available and can be accessed within the investor relations section of Demand Media’s corporate website at ir.demandmedia.com.

Another Statement About Search Engine Algorithm Changes

Posted by larry fitzgibbon at 4/17/2011 10:05 PM PDT

It’s hard to imagine a company more focused on the connection between consumers and content than Demand Media. That point of connection gives us the opportunity to inform, engage and serve the consumer. And it’s where trusted relationships start. So, how our content reaches the consumer–whether it’s through direct visits, social media referrals, apps or search–continues to be top of mind with everyone at the company. Consumers are connecting with more content than ever before as social media and mobile access have emerged to play huge roles that didn’t even exist just a few years ago. And search engines, of course, continue to play an integral part in content discovery and have been hard at work improving their products to create the best consumer experiences possible.

As I discussed on my last blog post, Google recently made significant search algorithm changes in an update dubbed Panda that has rolled out in various capacities from late February thru mid-April. With respect to Panda’s mid-April update, some of our properties saw Google search referrals move up while other properties, including our largest property eHow.com, saw these referrals go down.

As I said in my prior post, we generally do not comment or speculate on changes by major search engines, as these changes can happen nearly daily. However, recent third-party reports attempting to estimate the impact to our search driven traffic, including one projecting a 2/3rds decline in eHow.com traffic, are so significantly overstated that we decided to comment. As discussed in our press release issued today, we currently expect that in Q2 2011 our owned and operated Content & Media properties will generate year-over-year page view growth comparable to or greater than the year-over-year page view growth reported for Q2 2010. We have also reaffirmed our calendar year 2011 financial guidance in this press release.

Demand Media has a myriad of impactful sites and many sources of traffic. We are encouraged that the investments we’ve been making in site experience and content quality are making an impact with our consumers. Organic growth in visits from non-search sources to eHow continue to grow rapidly and Cracked.com is now the most visited humor site on the Internet with the majority of its page views coming from direct visits. Improvements have been registered from eHow’s recent redesign and the introduction of new video series leading to significant growth in Facebook likes. Our brand advertisers have also reported encouraging results with their intent-targeted campaigns. Rest assured, just as we have been innovators in building one of the largest online audiences, we are applying that same rigor and intensity to delivering a quality experience for consumers and advertisers.

As a disruptive digital media and technology company, we have been operating in a fast moving environment since the company’s founding five years ago. While change is frequent, one thing is certain–Demand Media is steadfast in our commitment to produce great outcomes for our consumers, advertisers and community of creative professionals. We’re in the trenches listening, learning, adapting and innovating–and we are very excited about the opportunity in front of us. We look forward to providing details on all of these topics and more in our previously announced conference call at 5:00pm (Eastern) May 5th, 2011 to discuss first quarter 2011 financial results.

Larry Fitzgibbon is Demand Media’s EVP of Media and Operations, and manages the company’s rapidly growing network of consumer properties.

Yahoo Bored Meeting? Not This Time!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:35:48 +0000

Today and tomorrow, Yahoo’s directors are gathering here in Silicon Valley for one of their regular meetings that take place over the course of the year.

While board meetings in general are usually pretty dull affairs–and Yahoo’s, in particular, are typically glacial ones–there is a lot on the plates of those with purview over the machinations of the long-struggling Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Here’s a primer of what might (and might not) be happening, according to sources, of course, as Yahoo continues on its quest to reinvigorate itself–a journey that is beginning to make Siddhartha’s transformation into Buddha enlightenment look speedy.

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment on anything below, although I did run it all by them.

The U-Shaped Turnaround

At Yahoo’s recent sales meeting in San Antonio, CEO Carol Bartz went all Sesame Street on the troops, using the letter “U” as an illustration to indicate where in the cycle the company was in its turnaround.

Apparently, just on the other side of the very bottom of the letter, heading inevitably upward.

Her argument was that the company has finally cleaned up its platform mess and its confusing corporate structure, and that its display and search advertising business is now recovering nicely.

All true, except there are some other key issues, such as the slowness of the search and online advertising partnership with Microsoft to make some serious hay.

In fact, although its display business will show a definite strong recovery in Yahoo’s quarterly results next week, its search business–both in market share and revenue per search (RPS)–has, as one person close to the situation put it succintly, “fallen off the cliff.”

That’s due, in part, to getting the new system with Microsoft delivering better results, which is not happening yet (if ever!).

In this quarter, Microsoft has honored its contractual guarantees and will make up the difference–which will result in masking the magnitude of the RPS loss. It’s a worrisome trend to watch.

The Asia Situation

Yahoo and its Asian partners are still mulling over various options regarding the company’s large ownership stakes there.

What is happening with its share in China’s Alibaba Group, according to sources, is precisely nothing right now, as has been made clear in recent comments by its CEO and co-founder Jack Ma.

“If you cannot make the business cool, you have no right to be angry with me,” said Ma in an article in Forbes published this week, referring to Yahoo. “I just don’t trust them…I’ve been working with them for years, and I’m disappointed.”

Relations between Ma and Bartz, sources said, remain as bad as ever, and even the normally close one between Ma and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang is strained.

Plus, Ma told Forbes, as he has said before, Alibaba is not taking its auction site, Taobao, public–leaving Yahoo in possession of an appreciating but decidedly private asset.

Japan is a different story, with the disposition of Yahoo’s stake in Yahoo! Japan the subject of long and continuing negotiations for a while now.

While the earthquake and tsunami crisis there did slow discussions down, there is still active recent movement about a variety of cashing-out scenarios, all of which have massive tax and regulatory issues.

Without boring you with the specifics, one option is to create a tracking stock, another a spin-off of the asset and still another some sort of stock trade.

But no matter what happens, Yahoo will have to pay some sort of taxes on its 35 percent stake in Yahoo! Japan, now worth $8 billion.

But if its CFO Tim Morse–the key figure working on the deal–can pull it off, what will Yahoo do with all that money?

Acquisition Guns Blazing? Or Sputtering?

In a recent forum in Silicon Valley, one of its M&A minions said Yahoo had its “guns blazing” with regard to acquisition activity in 2011, as deliciously reported in The Wall Street Journal, despite the company’s lackluster acquisition record.

Sources said the exec had his ears soundly boxed by his managers for the dopey remarks, since Yahoo has had such a lackluster record in the arena–especially compared to others.

And, oh yes, Yahoo’s M&A head just decamped to gaming phenom Zynga.

That aside, Yahoo should be deep in the market for hot start-ups to help revive its innovative spirit, but it remains hindered by a continued reluctance by new start-ups to join it and by its reputation for being a place where entrepreneurs go to die.

That certainly could change at any time with the right execs in place, but Yahoo is competing with a plethora of more exciting companies and also a seemingly endless venture capital gusher of cash of late.

While it is the board’s job to approve acquisitions and not source them, perhaps it is its job to pressure Bartz and other execs to get off the stick and hit at least one of the targets Yahoo aims at.

Targets are plentiful in advertising, content and even social, with many start-ups playing right into a lot of arenas Yahoo needs some help.

And help it does need as talent keeps walking out the door daily, mostly to hotter prospects such as Zynga and social buying sites Groupon and LivingSocial.

There is no question it is hard for any large company to hold onto top staff when there are so many enticing bonbons out there as options, but it can be done.

One good thing: Its newish head of product Blake Irving and head of U.S. media and advertising Ross Levinsohn seem to be playing well together and are setting a tone of stability that is much needed.

Enter the Kenny

That said, there remains endless swirl, especially with key investors, about the performance of its CEO.

While she started off as a publicly in-your-face exec, Bartz has definitely stepped out of the limelight of late, as her pugnacious manner started to irritate Wall Street and others.

It was a good idea, since it has taken the focus off the lack of stock and revenue progress she had loudly promised.

Still, Yahoo shares have continued to stay locked in the mid-teens, as investors wait for some sign that Bartz’s turnaround has worked.

The entrance of its spanking new director, Akamai President David Kenny, has further increased speculation about management and board changes at Yahoo.

This is Kenny’s first board meeting, but this well-connected newbie is someone who is clearly going to rise quickly to the top of decision-making at Yahoo.

That’s because the smooth and well-liked Kenny, who also has deep advertising experience as founder of the Digitas agency, has a long relationship with Yahoo and also with Yang.

He also now has much more tech cred as a leader of one of the Internet’s most important infrastructure companies, with a ton of regular contacts with media giants, ad networks and video providers that are Akamai’s clients.

In other words, Kenny (pictured here) is the full package of ad and tech experience that would make him an obvious Yahoo CEO candidate when Bartz’s contract is up in early 2013, if not before.

He’s also the person most likely to take over for longtime BoomTown punching bag Roy Bostock as chairman of the board at some point.

None of this is happening soon, but it is clearly an interesting development.

There are other machinations, of course, from continued interest from private equity players in Yahoo, as well as a variety of takeover scenarios, each more complex than the next.

While often derided as yesterday’s news by the elite of Silicon Valley as on an inevitable downward path, those plots are there because Yahoo remains a stellar brand with consumers worldwide and an Internet property with huge traffic and a big ad business.

In other words, it’s a U that someday maybe could be a V.

Video: The Cashmere Stylings of Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving

Kara Swisher — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:07:22 +0000

Yesterday, BoomTown spent a good part of the day at Yahoo’s HQ in Sunnyvale, Calif., meeting with various product execs and seeing some cool new stuff in the works.

I was impressed, as I had been several times over the many years I have covered the Silicon Valley Internet giant, where I have seen innovative efforts by the truckload.

That is, until they never saw the light of day, until some random teenaged entrepreneur got giant funding for the very same idea months later.

I put this question of failure to ship to Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving, who got to the company a little less than a year ago with the goal of shaking the place up.

Irving’s last job was as corporate VP of Microsoft’s Windows Live Platform group.

He left Microsoft several years ago, after 15 years, to spend time with his family and had been teaching at Pepperdine University.

Since he got to Yahoo, he’s certainly done some layoffs, restructuring and hiring–mostly from Microsoft–and now he is promising that there will be big changes in how Yahoo manages its product pipeline.

Here’s a longish video interview with Irving–who is a live wire, as you will see, as well as a wearer of soft and luxe candylicious sweaters–talking about this key issue, the search business, talent retention and more:

[ See post to watch video ]

AOL Layoffs Coming Soon, Followed by Champagne and Cookies for Advertisers When HuffPo Deal Closes

Kara Swisher — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:29:48 +0000

[UPDATED: Corrections below and in headline that layoffs coming soon after close, but not today.]

There’s no question it’s a jarring contrast–layoffs versus champagne and cookies.

But that’s the reality at AOL as its acquisition of the Huffington Post closes this week, even as it sheds employees as part of its ongoing turnaround effort.

Sources said the New York-based Internet portal could announce layoffs as early as today.

[UPDATE: Layoffs will not come until after the Huffington Post deal is closed said other sources, although they are coming.]

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong indicated job cuts were definitely coming at a paidContent conference in New York yesterday.

“There will be job changes,” he said, when asked about layoffs.

Perhaps sooner than later.

BoomTown received several emails from worried AOL employees, noting that human resources staffers were taking steps to initiate the layoffs at 10 am ET/7 am PT this morning and that there would also be employee meetings then too.

I followed up with several sources close to the situation, who confirmed that the layoffs are imminent. Nonetheless, they could not specify the timing, size and scope of them.

[UPDATE: There will be an all-hands meeting for AOL staff with Armstrong, as well as new content head Arianna Huffington.]

The last time AOL laid off employees a year ago, it was a large action with job cuts of 2,300.

The latest slashing comes just as AOL management will try to aggressively tout the closing of its $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post.

The integration of the well-known news and opinion site will mean a significant change for AOL’s editorial efforts, as well as an opportunity to impress advertisers.

Thus, AOL is prepping boxes with Greek cookies and pricey champagne to send out to key advertising clients, to celebrate the deal’s close.

Why Greek cookies? Because it’s the original country of Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post.

I have emails into AOL for a comment.

Actually, AOL's Mark Ellis Is Headed to Yahoo

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 23:06:33 +0000

As AOL CEO Tim Armstrong works to integrate his $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post into the Internet portal, one of its top advertising leaders is departing for a big job at Yahoo.

Mark Ellis will become head of the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s North American field sales, afterhttp://kara.allthingsd.com/wp-admin/my-sites.php serving in a wide variety of jobs at AOL and being a key lieutenant to global ad sales head Jeff Levick.

Previous to AOL, Ellis worked at sports marketing company IMG, at Quokka Sports, a sports Web site and at Time Inc. as publisher of Time Inc. New Media.

While there, he worked with Yahoo’s current U.S. ad sales head Wayne Powers.

While AOL portrayed the move as a well-planned reorganization in an internal memo, the departure of Ellis was a new wrinkle, as Armstrong has been contemplating how to best rejigger its key ad business after the bold acquisition of the news and opinion site run by its famous editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington.

Several sources said Armstrong found out a week ago about Yahoo’s interest in hiring Ellis, whom Yahoo had been pursing Ellis for far longer. Interestingly, he has been involved in the planning for the changes as the deal to buy the Huffington Post wraps up.

Sources said that deal is expected to close as soon as a week.

Previous to the Huffington Post situation, sources at AOL said the New York-based company has been contemplating a variety of changes, including Ellis’ role, in the ad department as its sales have continued to suffer.

Whatever the circumstances, an experienced ad sales exec like Ellis moving to a major AOL competitor is certainly a change.

Here is Levick’s staff memo on the changes in AOL’s ad unit, with the Ellis move buried low and with no mention of Yahoo (natch!):

Team–

One year ago this week, we decided to innovate the future of brand advertising for the digital world. Last night, our work was recognized by the industry in a meaningful and significant way. The race is on for the next phase of advertising on the Internet and we are in that race. We have more to do, but we’re going to do it and do it quickly.

Today, we also wanted to announce a set of changes that will allow us to expand and accelerate our ability to serve our customers on a deeper level. We now have a great suite of products to match our talented team. We also have an expanding base of consumers on some of the best brands on the Internet and that represents a very attractive proposition for our customers. The addition of The Huffington Post adds an incredibly talented team of sales people and journalists to our team and we have the ability to scale all aspects of our business.

I’m very happy to announce that over the next 90 days, we will be integrating The Huffington Post sellers into our regional teams and expanding the roles of three of our star field generals–Tim Richards, Wendy McGregor, and Tim Castelli. Wendy, Tim, and Tim will lead the sales for AOL and Huffington Post Media Group and report directly to me, moving them into a more central role in AOL’s revenue strategies and management.

Jim Norton will continue to lead the Advance Sales team but will also be taking on a new role as the VP of Product Sales, reporting into me. In this role, he will help realize the potential with Mail, AIM, Local, AOL.com and other core product solutions for National and Advance advertisers, serving as a critical ‘linchpin’ that connects our advertiser opportunities with AOL solutions. Christa Zambardino will continue to lead sales efforts for AOL.com and will report to Jim.

Don Kennedy will also report directly to me, taking our focus on the network to new levels and will continue to build out our Network Sales organization, working in close partnership with Dave Jacobs and Rob Luenberger.

Finally, Mark Ellis will be leaving the organization. I can’t thank Mark enough for all he has done for AOL and for the teams during his time here. He has been a great partner to me and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

We will continue to keep you updated on the status of the Huffington Post deal as well as any other organizational announcements. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions.

Best,

Jeff

Yahoo's (and Associated Content Founder) Luke Beatty Talks About Google's Content Farm Putsch

Kara Swisher — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:02:32 +0000

Yahoo’s Luke Beatty said he is not worried.

“We welcome the change,” he insisted about Google taking aim last Friday at so-called “content farms,” producers of low-quality content that spam up the Web and the search giant’s results. “And we endorse what Google is doing 100 percent.”

That’s ironic, given among those allegedly hit hardest by changing of its famous algorithm–based on early, and perhaps questionable, surveys–is Yahoo’s Associated Content.

But, if true, and traffic at Associated Content–which the Silicon Valley Internet giant bought for $90 million last May–is indeed badly hurt, it’s obviously going to be a problem for Yahoo, which relies on advertising revenue as its core business.

A quick poll by Sistrix, a search engine optimization firm, using one million keywords before and after Google’s changes, showed that Associated Content’s “visibility index”– including keyword and ranking positions ranking and clickthrough rate–was down 93 percent.

So yesterday, Beatty, who founded Associated Content and now works at Yahoo, dialed up BoomTown to talk about what the Google shift will mean to Yahoo.

First off in the wide-ranging interview, he noted, “everything on the Web is changing all the time,” noting that Associated Content used to rely more on the now weakened Digg and RSS for its traffic and distribution.

“Obviously, that has changed and we have still managed to grow,” he said.

Beatty said it is still not clear that the new tweaks in search criteria at Google would mean for Associated Content’s offerings–coming from 400,000 contributors of all kinds.

“Our data will not be reconciled for weeks…but some will be up and some will be down,” he said, adding the overall, “I suspect it will be down, although it’s not accurate by any means in the numbers released so far, since there is no way you can know this early.”

Still, it’s obvious that Google’s latest move has not been not good for Associated Content, although Beatty noted that the Silicon Valley search king is no longer the main source of traffic for Associated Content material.

Instead, that would be the owned-and-operated sites of Yahoo, most of all, and–increasingly–social networking sites such as Facebook.

“When we sold the company, we know that sites of Yahoo itself would be the biggest driver of our growth and that was the plan,” said Beatty. “And, though smaller, social means of distribution are clearly the way people are now finding our content.”

In an email later, Beatty underscored this point:

“Search traffic is not our focus within Yahoo–it hasn’t been for 10
months…traffic sources have changed endlessly over that last six years…search is one, albeit an important one and clearly, [but] now it too is changing and we see the future of our content distribution coming from O&O properties and social networks, as much as anything.”

Still, Beatty said Associated Content will adapt as long as Google does not make its tweaks on a network basis and rather than on a site basis. (Interestingly, that would presumably include Google’s own–and often spammish–Blogger property, which is fueled by its powerful AdSense engine.)

“It appears that changes have been made on an asset-by-asset basis
is good–networkwide cramdown would be inappropriate and uneducated,” he said.

Still, the best way to fight the Google initiative is by delivering higher quality content, which Beatty said was being done at the company via a series of ongoing measures to improve overall submissions.

Those include a Yahoo style guide for content creators, a two-tiered human editor review process, analytical analysis, a featured contributor program and, interesting, an online tutorial process called the Yahoo Contributor Network.

It’s not exactly Harvard University, of course, but Beatty said there is more to come.

“We are committed to supporting and helping our contributors navigate through this and every other change in the crowdsourced content economy,” he said. “We want the best article to get more traffic.”

Of course, with Google’s doubtlessly continuing changes in its criteria for what good content is, presumably, that won’t be Yahoo’s to decide.

Hot Swap at the Top: AMD CEO Out

John Paczkowski — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:01:16 +0000

AMD’s looking for a new CEO. Moments ago, the company announced that Dirk Meyer, who has served in that position since July of 2008, is resigning. AMD is spinning Meyer’s departure as the result of a “mutual” agreement, but the fact that it’s effective immediately and that CFO Thomas Seifert has been tapped to replace him suggest it may have been otherwise.

Seifert isn’t even a candidate for the permanent position. And Meyer was talking up AMD at CES just last week.

“Dirk became CEO during difficult times,” AMD chairman Bruce Claflin said in a statement. “He successfully stabilized AMD….However, the Board believes we have the opportunity to create increased shareholder value over time. This will require the company to have significant growth, establish market leadership and generate superior financial returns. We believe a change in leadership at this time will accelerate the company’s ability to accomplish these objectives.”

AMD reports fourth-quarter financial results Thursday.

Welcome to ATD: The Very Enterprising Arik Hesseldahl

Kara Swisher — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:20:53 +0000

And Arik Hesseldahl (pictured here) makes it four.

New reporters and bloggers for All Things Digital, that is.

The well-known tech writer–based in New York–will be covering the enterprise arena, as well as chips, for us.

As most regular readers know, this site has been expanding its staff, adding even more top-notch editorial might to our already terrific work.

That includes Ina Fried on mobile, Liz Gannes on social and Tricia Duryee on e-commerce.

All are key areas of tech coverage for ATD, obviously. But, as we thought about it, it was clear that there was not nearly enough cutting-edge tech journalism going on in the enterprise space.

It’s an important topic, involving a range of companies, such as Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and a spate of interesting start-ups. And, did you hear Google’s moving into enterprise?

While all the attention in the tech press is usually focused on the latest minor innovation from Facebook or some other Silicon Valley phenom, enterprise is also a hotbed of change and disruption, as businesses seek to understand and adapt to what digital technologies mean to them.

Thus, we turned to Arik, who has a long history covering a wide range of beats in tech.

He’s most recently been working for Bloomberg Businessweek, where for five years he covered it all: PCs, consumer electronics and semiconductors.

He was also the third person to write Businessweek.com’s popular “Byte of the Apple” column, and contributed to a companion blog of the same name.

Before joining Businessweek, Arik spent five years at Forbes.com, covering pretty much every aspect of tech, writing a daily column called “Ten O’Clock Tech,” a daily survey of a single new tech product that predated properties like Engadget and Gizmodo.

Before that, he cut his tech teeth learning all there was to know about the chip industry as a reporter for a now-defunct trade newspaper called Electronic News, which is notable for being the place where the phrase “Silicon Valley” was first used in print.

One Friday in March, 2000, in fact, he actually got to say “Stop the presses” to editors in San Jose, Calif., as the paper was being put to bed, with the dramatic news that AMD would the following Monday announce its first chip to run at the then-blistering speed of 1GHz.

The story was flashed to subscribers of a daily fax newsletter–quaint, no?–that night before tearing out that issue’s front page. Previously, chip speeds were measured in Megahertz.

Arik attended the University of Oregon, and is originally from that state. After a two-year stint reporting for a daily newspaper in Idaho, he moved to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia University.

He has been a New Yorker ever since. When not working, he can often be found catching a jazz show at the Village Vanguard.

Welcome to ATD: The Very Enterprising Arik Hesseldahl

Kara Swisher — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:20:44 +0000

And Arik Hesseldahl (pictured here) makes it four.

New reporters and bloggers for All Things Digital, that is.

The well-known tech writer–based in New York–will be covering the enterprise arena, as well as chips, for us.

As most regular readers know, this site has been expanding its staff, adding even more top-notch editorial might to our already terrific work.

That includes Ina Fried on mobile, Liz Gannes on social and Tricia Duryee on e-commerce.

All are key areas of tech coverage for ATD, obviously. But, as we thought about it, it was clear that there was not nearly enough cutting-edge tech journalism going on in the enterprise space.

Thus, we turned to Arik, who has a long history covering a wide range of beats in tech.

He’s most recently been working for Bloomberg Businessweek, where for five years he covered it all: PCs, consumer electronics and semiconductors.

He was also the third person to write Businessweek.com’s popular “Byte of the Apple” column, and contributed to a companion blog of the same name.

The story was flashed to subscribers of a daily fax newsletter–quaint, no?–that night before tearing out that issue’s front page. Previously, chip speeds were measured in Megahertz.

He has been a New Yorker ever since. When not working, he can often be found catching a jazz show at the Village Vanguard.

Author Ken Auletta Talks About Google and Its "Lack of Emotional Intelligence"

Kara Swisher — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:50:35 +0000

Guess what? Google has too many Spocks and not enough Captain Kirks.

This is one of the many interesting insights BoomTown gleaned from a video interview last night–which you can see below–with well-known New Yorker scribe Ken Auletta, who has just written a new book, “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.”

This “lack of emotional intelligence” at the search giant, said Auletta, reminded him a lot of the subject of one of his previous books: Microsoft (MSFT).

Oh, the delicious irony!

Auletta was feted at a lovely party last night at the San Francisco house of Common Sense Media’s Jim Steyer, where a range of Google (GOOG) execs, Internet folks and fans gathered to talk about the book.

It’s all about Google, its history and, most important, its impact on the world. And how you look at the powerful search giant depends entirely on whether you are the changer or the changed, as Auletta stresses in multiple anecdotes in the book.

Traditional media, for example, have certainly been mucho irked of late about the impact of digital technologies on their businesses and have not been shy about casting blame most heapingly on Google’s Silicon Valley plate.

And government regulators are also giving the company the hairy eyeball, much as they had previously done to Microsoft.

Auletta and I talked about all of this and more in the video interview below, in which he notes that he told Googlers at a talk at their adorkable Googleplex HQ in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday that they need to focus less on being engineering brainiacs and more on trying to understand how to deal with fears of their growing power.

Here’s my interview with Auletta about this, as well as what old media needs to do to deal with all the change Google has wrought. (And you can see interviews I did with guests at the party, too).

And below that is one of the disturbing number of mash-up music videos about “Star Trek” buddies, the highly illogical Kirk and the Vulcanish Spock, the geek bromance of all time.

[ See post to watch video ]

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Off to D7: The More Things Change, the More They, Well, Are A-Changin'

Kara Swisher — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:01:54 +0000

BoomTown will be driving the minivan–packed with my assistant Ed, my mom, two mannequins (don’t ask), a coffee machine and lots of coffee and some very nice outfits–down to the seventh D: All Things Digital conference today, so don’t expect much in the way of blog posts from me.

Thus, I hope Twitter doesn’t sell to [fill in the blank], Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer don’t agree to agree (until they are on the D stage next week) and Facebook’s valuation doesn’t ricochet up and down the blog-hyped scale once again.

But, in that event, the rest of the well-oiled All Things Digital machine will be in full force covering tech and media news, even as we gear up for the big event next week, which will feature pretty much all the major players in the digital space.

On my way to D, I will be stopping by the University of California at Santa Barbara to speak in its Tech Management Lecture Series, which is titled “The Tomorrow Makers: Change & Challenge for Entrepreneurs & Innovators.”

Ah, the makers of tomorrow! I shall have to mull exactly what that means on the ride south through change-loving California, which is now pretty challenged as a going concern from a government point of view.

I have done some version of this drive now for seven years, from Silicon Valley to Carlsbad, Calif., headed to all the many D conferences, which began in 2003 in the midst of some very serious shifts for the tech industry.

It’s still the same story today, of course, as new trends, start-ups and technologies have come and gone (most they go, with only the lucky few actually staying).

Which will be, of course, the same story tomorrow too, and at all the D events to come in the years ahead.

Until I check back into the matrix, here’s Bob Dylan in a video from way back in the day, singing that famous song of his about that very subject:

Off to D7: The More Things Change, the More They, Well, Are A-Changin'

Kara Swisher — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:01:17 +0000

It’s still the same story today, of course, as new trends, start-ups and technologies have come and gone (most they go, with only the lucky few actually staying).

Which will be, of course, the same story tomorrow too, and at all the D events to come in the years ahead.

Until I check back into the matrix, here’s Bob Dylan in a video from way back in the day, singing that famous song of his about that very subject:

When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do (As in, No Twittering or Much iPhoning)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:45:08 +0000

BoomTown’s visit to Italy has been eye-opening in a lot of ways, not the least of which is to be reminded that not everyone in the world is jacked into the matrix 24/7.

In other words, Julius Caesar conquered Rome, but Twitter definitely has not.

In fact, the conference being held here is aptly called “Tutto Cambio, Cambiamo Tutto?” (I came here to interview Huffington Post editrix Arianna Huffington and LinkedIn founder and CEO Reid Hoffman onstage about innovation and online trends.)

That roughly translates into “Everything changes, let’s change everything?”

This is not a question that is much asked in Silicon Valley, which changes just like the weather, embracing change for change’s sake.

But here, whether or not to change is much more of a debate–one in which change does not always come out on top.

Internet penetration is much lower here than elsewhere in Europe, as is everything from per capita computer ownership to online advertising spending. Television still dominates most media.

“We’re 2,000 years old” is something you hear a lot from people as an explanation for approaching everything, from social networking to iPhones to anything interactive, with some wariness.

While most people here note that they like Facebook, prounounced “FAY-sa BOO-ka,” hardly anyone sees the point of Web 2.0′s trend du jour, Twitter (“TWEE-tur”).

In fact, few have heard of it, and those who have don’t use it.

And while several people have iPhones, no one seems over the moon about the Apple (AAPL) phenom or captivated by its potential to herald Web 3.0 as the mobile revolution.

In any case, here is a video I did, speaking to both Huffington (here is her blog on the event) and Hoffman, as well as to several Italians at the conference:

[ See post to watch video ]

Super Tuesday: Turn and Face the Strain (of All That Political Rhetoric)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:02:28 +0000

Why I do I love the Internet? Because one online video can encapsulate and send up all the political noise instantly, that’s why.

So as you vote (and whoever you prefer, most definitely get out and vote), try to remember that it is all about ch-ch-ch-ch-changes: