Yahoo announced today that it was restructuring its advertising sales force, after being without a head of its key U.S. unit since mid-March.

Big news: No new top ad sales exec.

Instead, several North American sales execs with larger portfolios will report directly to Hilary Schneider, who is in charge of the Americas for Yahoo (YHOO).

“This elevates the strong talent and brings a broader set of voices one step higher in the organization,” said Schneider in an interview today. “The marketplace is changing rapidly and bringing complete solutions is really the mantra of where the market is going.”

This move is a shift from the direction Yahoo had been heading in since Joanne Bradford stepped down as head of U.S. revenue and market development for Yahoo in mid-March.

Schneider had been leading the search for an external replacement for Bradford, using star headhunter Jim Citrin of Spencer Stuart.

The company apparently was unable to land the kind of prominent name Yahoo had been seeking for the job, after trying to attract several well-known candidates and rejecting others.

“Our leadership in sales is the strongest to date,” said Schneider, explaining the new structure for its ad sales force. “I have kissed a lot of frogs over the years, but it turned out the Prince Charmings we always needed were back at the ranch.”

(Frogs? Prince Charmings? On a ranch? Block that metaphor, although BoomTown will go along anyway!)

“Each of our leaders has strong relationships with advertisers and they know and trust each other,” said Schneider. “I will be consolidating the operational hub and directly managing it this time.”

Among the changes:

Mitch Spolan, the 11-year Yahoo veteran who is in charge of North American field sales, will also pick up responsibility for agency development and relationships.

Seth Dallaire, who has been running mid-market sales, will now be in charge of channel sales, reseller relationships and new and emerging formats, such as video, local, social and mobile.

Frank Weishaupt, who has been in charge of marketplaces, will add sales operations and training and sales development to his portfolio.

Lastly, Jim Stothard, who has been in charge of account management, will be leaving Yahoo for personal reasons, but will be working with Schneider to find his replacement.

Schneider said the new sales structure will eliminate a layer of management to better focus on improving advertising sales

That’s important, due to Yahoo’s recent quarterly earnings report, in which it posted flat revenue compared to last year, despite a recovery of the display advertising market.

Display is an area in which Yahoo (YHOO) has long dominated, although Google (GOOG) and others have stepped up competitive efforts aggressively.

So, the slowness in filling the company’s key sales position has had a lot of people inside Yahoo a little jumpy, because of the importance of firm leadership in the premium display online ad business in which the Internet giant needs to keep excelling.

Microsoft (MSFT) recently hired one of the people Yahoo had considered–former MTV Networks ad exec Carolyn Everson–for its head of sales.

With Everson and others not panning out, one hope was that Patrick Keane, CEO of Associated Content, which Yahoo just acquired, would take the job. But sources said he declined the offer.

Yahoo also had eyeballed internal candidates, but it seems to have decided to simply kiss, oops, elevate almost all of them.

Said Yahoo in its official statement about the changes:

“Yahoo! is committed to maintaining and strengthening partnerships with advertisers and agencies, and has a long history of sales leadership in the industry. The North American sales organization will now report directly to Hilary Schneider, EVP of the Americas. This organizational change will elevate the strong executive talent at Yahoo! and accelerate our momentum in the marketplace.”

It’s been almost four months since Joanne Bradford stepped down as head of U.S. revenue and market development for Yahoo and the company has yet to hire a new exec to fill the key job.

That’s got a lot of people inside Yahoo (YHOO) a little jumpy, according to numerous sources who have contacted me recently, because of the importance of firm leadership in the premium display online ad business in which the Internet giant needs to keep excelling.

U.S. head Hilary Schneider has been leading the search for a replacement for Bradford, using star headhunter Jim Citrin of Spencer Stuart.

But she’s reportedly been unable to land the kind of prominent name Yahoo has been seeking for the job, after trying to attract several well-known candidates and rejecting others.

Microsoft (MSFT) recently hired an exec Yahoo had considered–former MTV Networks ad exec Carolyn Everson, who is likely to be announcing a new sales structure there soon–for its head of U.S. online ad sales.

With Everson and others not panning out, one hope was that Patrick Keane, CEO of Associated Content, which Yahoo just acquired, would take the job. But sources said he has thus far declined the offer.

And that’s why, sources said, Yahoo is back to eyeballing internal candidates again, especially 11-year Yahoo veteran Mitch Spolan, VP of North American field sales, and Mollie Spilman, Yahoo’s SVP of B2B marketing and also its packaging group.

Another Yahoo exec who had been in the running: Seth Dallaire, a former Microsoft exec whom Bradford brought to the company last fall as VP of mid-market sales, a newly-created role responsible for all mid-market sales efforts across search and display advertising.

We’ll see how it turns out, but as Yahoo just closed its second quarter, it will be important to get some clarity around its most important business in its most important market, especially as its stock continues its lackluster performance.

To help goose its shares, Yahoo announced a $3 billion stock buyback plan last week.

Yesterday, BoomTown posted Part One of an interview with Microsoft’s Greg Nelson and Yahoo’s Mark Morrissey.

The pair (pictured here) are in charge of a two-year effort to coordinate a massive search and online advertising partnership, the result of a deal the companies struck last year.

It is critical they get it right, as Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) have a lot riding on the success of the effort, which is an attempt to catch up with search giant and dominant market leader Google (GOOG).

The companies–one from Washington state and the other from Silicon Valley–have a combined share of close to 30 percent, and the hope is that together the partnership is a better offering to both advertisers and consumers.

We’ll see about that, of course, but here’s the rest of what they had to say about the attempt in all its gory details:

MARK MORRISSEY: Let’s talk a little bit about–hopefully this won’t be too boring–but let’s talk a little bit about the execution process, because then this will give you the insight.

So, remember, Greg said we had about 25 people in each of our respective transition teams, that basically there’s a lead, and they’re all mirrored for each of the major elements of the program. Each of them, they all have their own execution structures, right, because they have whole teams of people that are working on their stuff.

So, we basically…Greg and I lead the overall transition. There are three primary areas: The algo transition, the paid search transition, and all sales and marketing. That third part is maybe the biggest of the three.

Then the 25 underneath that group, and then there’s hundreds and in some cases thousands of people underneath them in support of that.

So, they have each of their own weekly cadence of when they get together and how they make their decisions. That rolls all up to Greg and I, and Greg and I are responsible for what we call the plan of record that sets the milestones and locks the scope and the sequence of markets.

We completed our plan of record, except for the sequence of markets, because we’ve not finalized that, but all the rest of it, the scope, the timing, major milestones. We signed that off in what we call our joint operating team that meets weekly up here. And that’s just about 16 people on the joint operating team.

GREG NELSON: Yeah, more or less, all your core leads.

MARK MORRISSEY: We meet weekly. We make basically the scope change control decisions, any changes in milestones.

So, that’s how we control the overall program, keep it on schedule; we look at confidence levels, sign off on road maps, final signoff, that kind of stuff gets handled there.

Then once a month each of us…so, I meet with [Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz]. So, I work for Carol. I meet with Carol’s staff, give her staff a full briefing. Greg meets with the executive steering committee.

And then about every six or eight weeks, Carol wants to get together.

So, we have real, unbelievable top-down support and engagement, and we have a formal decision-making process that goes all the way down from the individual sub-element of the program up to a common place that we guide and make decisions on.

BOOMTOWN: And going forward–what I’m thinking about is things that happen later that you might want. All of a sudden Google is doing search by mental telepathy, for example.

MARK MORRISSEY: I heard about that one, yeah.

BOOMTOWN: Whatever they’re doing.

MARK MORRISSEY: It’s going to take them a long time to get that done.

BOOMTOWN: Well, they’re aliens. I told you, they’re aliens. No one believes me.

So, they decide to do something that you need, or else you like come up with some grand new idea that Google hasn’t thought of. How does that go into place?

GREG NELSON: Well, I mean, it could be…it would probably start informally, right? So, Mark and I either talk or email basically every day.

MARK MORRISSEY: Usually many times.

BOOMTOWN: I’m talking about year four.

GREG NELSON: Yeah, I know, but I’m just saying the strength of the relationship is in large part…you know, this is the pivot point. You’re sitting with the two guys to try and pivot this thing both up and down.

More likely than not, like just before you were coming up here, we were trading notes on a couple different processes that we’re trying to build or checking in on one thing or another.

So, if [Microsoft Online Services President Qi Lu] gets a big brainwave about the next big thing we’re going to do in search, and we’re going to build it into the API, probably what happens, because I get asked to do this 50 times a week, is, “Hey, why don’t you chat with Mark about that and see if Yahoo has got any interest.”

So, you’ve got this really high-frequency, pretty high-fidelity conversation, and then we might say, okay, yeah, that’s interesting, like let’s go activate it in the sales track and in the ops track and let’s pull in some of our leads, let’s brainstorm it, and then you’d push it in both directions.

MARK MORRISSEY: Right, because it has to fit into both companies’ road maps, right, and then what sales and marketing does, and if it’s customer facing it affects what sales is going to do.

GREG NELSON: And then you’d say, okay, we have this plan of record, that’s a big enough one, wow, that’s an amazing idea, let’s change the plan of record, and then we have a formal process to do that kind of change.

MARK MORRISSEY: And four years from now the plan of record won’t be around transition, it will be around what’s the next set of releases, what are our market objectives, how are we going to go.

BOOMTOWN: Let’s talk about that, what the next, when you’re not as you’re thinking this all the time on a daily basis, what is from your perspective the next thing in search or things that are further along.

GREG NELSON: Next big idea?

BOOMTOWN: Yeah.

GREG NELSON: Is that what you mean?

BOOMTOWN: Yeah.

GREG NELSON: Yeah, we can come back to that one. I’ll try and think up something really smart by the time we get back to it.

BOOMTOWN: Okay. So, sales and marketing.

MARK MORRISSEY: Yeah, so like I said, one of, if not the most important area for long-term success, is around sales and marketing. There’s a rather interesting and complicated setup here where we have a larger sales team with a little bit more experience, and then each of the regions, right, will have their sales teams. The sales team will still report to [Yahoo U.S. head Hilary Schneider] to run the overall thing, but the sales teams report regionally. And yet they have to learn adCenter.

So, there’s just a tremendous amount of training, right, to bring the Yahoo team up on adCenter, because I think the most important thing is not the transition, it’s optimizing on behalf of every advertiser after the transition, to achieve their market objectives.

There’s just a humongous amount of training broken up into four courses, huge investment that the Yahoo team is making in the training materials and the man-hours and all that preparation work that they have with their customers. All the customer communications that are happening now, we’re starting to do joint communication events, we had a big search alliance forum in Seattle two weeks ago.

GREG NELSON: Yeah, the search and marketing forum was here, and so we brought customers in a day before to just spend a day with Microsoft and Yahoo to learn about the search alliance.

We got up on stage first and sort of told the vision and took just open Q&A and said, what do you want to talk about, and then we had breakout groups with customers just to say what are you really interested in, what does a successful transition look like to you, what services or kind of information do you need.

This is an area where you could easily be in tension, right, or where you could have conflict between your two sales forces. That’s been so much easier than I would have guessed, because of the maturity and professionalism.

We still handle what we call standard advertisers. So, if you are not a hand-sold kind of premium customer, but you come directly to the platform, then you come to Microsoft, because you’re really just coming to adCenter. Otherwise, you’re with Yahoo and Yahoo is your sales force.

BOOMTOWN: And I assume if you ever got to a display agreement struck, that would be a similar.

MARK MORRISSEY: I can’t comment on display, but there’s definitely a synergy between search and display, as you well know, yeah.

[But] I think I should talk about two things that we haven’t covered. One is about the benefits of the combined marketplace, and then also we haven’t mentioned anything about where we are in terms of the current progress, because it’s actually from my perspective pretty phenomenal in terms of how much we’ve gotten done.

Starting with the unified marketplace, one of the biggest benefits here in a scale business is having a sufficient level of volume in a single buy, with a single campaign, a single set of optimizations, to help advertisers to achieve their marketing objectives.

So, by combining each of our respective share numbers, it now produces really for any sizable advertiser close to 30 percent, plus or minus, right, depending on a couple things in the U.S., and that’s a must buy.

GREG NELSON: Lots of upside.

MARK MORRISSEY: We’ve got work to do.

GREG NELSON: Unlimited potential.

MARK MORRISSEY: Our Yahoo consumers who want to stay on Yahoo search, and we believe that because of the relevance of Microsoft’s results and the rest of the stuff we’re going to put around it, and how we wrap search into the overall experience, we shouldn’t give consumers any reason to go anywhere else to search. That should just lift share in and of itself.

GREG NELSON: The other nice thing, both if you want to look at it that way, is the more lopsided the share, the more enthusiastic advertisers and publishers are about the search alliance.

We have lots of friends all around the world rooting for us and asking how they can help.

MARK MORRISSEY: So, the benefit of a unified marketplace is that advertisers, you know, today they spend most of their time on Google, a little less time on Yahoo, less time on adCenter, and now we’re going to give them one system, one buy, with more clicks, which gives you more consistent performance. Their time is better spent on that optimization.

And not only does that generate just natural lift across the marketplace, but the main byproduct is it produces better ads. Better ads help produce a better search experience, better search experience and all positive…to feed the positive virtuous cycle.

We’ve gotten outstanding feedback, not that every single advertiser is happy, because there are some advertisers that would like to see maybe a non-liquid marketplace, because that was good for them. But, by and large, you look across the base, our customers are very happy.

The biggest thing is they want us to do it with quality, and they want us just to be transparent with where we are along the process.

So, can we switch to talk about where we are?

BOOMTOWN: Okay.

MARK MORRISSEY: So, we signed in December. We have regulatory clearance, commencement in February, and we got to plan of record in May. We’ve been coding like mad, sales, market teams working through their plans. And we are now in the testing phase, which is really significant.

We still have coding to do, there’s a couple more really significant releases that we have to do together before the paid transition can occur. But right now we’re in the testing phase.

We are well into the testing phase for algo, and we’re starting the testing phase for paid. I think what I said at analyst day, because I did show that one example from that, and that was we are continuing to progress right along our testing plan. A huge achievement on Friday, we got to 100 percent of a certain level of testing, and so far so good.

But the hardest work is still in front of us, but if you just think of it, we’re chipping away week by week by week.

That requires all this complexity to work, right, because a query has to come to Yahoo, we’ve got to send it off through Microsoft’s API and we’ve got to get the results, and then we’ve got to put all of our other stuff around it and deliver the whole page experience.

BOOMTOWN: In speed.

MARK MORRISSEY: In speed, that’s right, that’s right.

BOOMTOWN: And you’re also testing the advertiser experience.

MARK MORRISSEY: Right. They’re separate, okay. We are going to run bucket tests of them together and separate, as you’d expect, but the actual traffic switch can be done separate, algo versus paid.

Right now we’re in the testing phase, and it’s going as well…it’s going better than I had hoped it would go. I mean, it’s not to say that we are in the clear on this, but, in terms of ramping up that process, checking off our weekly milestone, the testing process is going really well so far.

BOOMTOWN: And the people at Yahoo in that area are pleased with it? Because they’re again the customers in a weird way.

MARK MORRISSEY: We have a lot of work to do, too. I don’t want to make it sound like we’re all just customers here, but yeah, I mean, like we were skeptical about how quickly some of this work could get done, how quickly the relevance numbers could get achieved. We were confident Microsoft was the right choice. And it’s so far, so good. The things are working as we had hoped. Relevance is really good. I said that at analyst day the relevance is really good, and we’re cautiously optimistic.

BOOMTOWN: And the other thing that’s interesting to me now is the thing that Google can’t search, and neither can you is a lot of the people data in Facebook and all the social networking sites that get very deep and complex.

GREG NELSON: Part of your question about the future of search may be more a cooperation, really driven by consumer demand for those parts of the Web to become more open, which would be great.

There are some companies that don’t necessarily want to participate, but if consumers either vote with their feet or apply enough pressure, that that stuff should open up.

At some point maybe it just becomes overwhelming. You know [Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving], who’s now at Yahoo. One of the things he worked on really hard here when he was at Microsoft was interoperability between our two messaging platforms.

There is an example where really the consumer value is very obvious, very powerful, and eventually it broke through. You may find the same in the sort of non-crawlable parts of the Web, because when people think of search-oriented, keyword-based navigation of information as something that they expect, if you can’t get to some type of data through that, they may just stop using it, because it’s too inconvenient.

MARK MORRISSEY: I think that’s kind of the point I was trying to make earlier is that the search experience has to evolve significantly.

And I’ll call it the traditional search if the consumer knows exactly what they’re looking for, and they’re going to go through page after page of results. That’s yesterday’s search game. Search is more navigational now, it’s definitely more social, and helping users to find information that they’re looking for in a more natural way, rather than just a query and going through pages of blue links. We think that’s really critical.

By leveraging Microsoft’s huge investments in I’ll call it the traditional aspect of search, that always has to happen, right, the indexing, the crawling and the ranking is huge, hugely important, and useful, absolutely, and then layering on top of that two companies really focused on evolving the future of the search experience, and each of us having our own skills.

GREG NELSON: Just getting back to sort of what people want or what they expect, I assume you saw some of the research that we did when we were designing Bing. It’s something like over 60 percent, something like 65 percent of search sessions are unsuccessful.

So, the future of search is not just improving relevance, but also bringing people the answer so that your percentage of sessions that are successful goes very close to 100 percent, and the amount of time that you spend in that navigational part of the session has to get smaller and smaller and smaller.

The decision engine sort of positioning, the thing that led us in that direction was that very long term bet that you can understand the intent of the user, and then translate that into a different form of relevance, and you can serve up increasingly rich, not links, because links are just a way to end up somewhere else that you may not know anything about, but serve up high quality, credible answers or results or experiences, without having to navigate out of the search paradigm.

MARK MORRISSEY: To me when we talk about experiences, it’s that. It’s not just a query and results, it’s leading the user through the information that they’re looking for.

A big driver for the decision that we made in the partnership with Microsoft is to allow us to focus on that.

GREG NELSON: There are a whole lot of premium opportunities that are available to Yahoo.

We have a lot of things that are in the core API, we have a lot of things that can be put in the API.

And so Yahoo can form their strategy about what they want to do with the user experience, and we have a lot of things to do too.

The thing that’s been fun for me, and you know this by covering MSN, too, is you step into the search discussion at Microsoft at any level of the company, and you feel the level of focus and energy and forward momentum. Because when this company gets really serious about something, you really feel it. I mean, you felt it in Windows and Office and Internet Explorer. And now you feel it in search. Both the product experience like Bing but also at the platform level.

It’s fun. Like as someone that has spent 15 years now, I just had my 15th anniversary a couple weeks ago…

BOOMTOWN: What do you get?

GREG NELSON: You get a big piece of glass.

BOOMTOWN: Really?

GREG NELSON: Yeah.

BOOMTOWN: Like a vase?

GREG NELSON: No, like a big monolith.

BOOMTOWN: Really?

GREG NELSON: Yes.

BOOMTOWN: Nice.

GREG NELSON: Come over to my office and I’ll show you.

BOOMTOWN: Okay. [Laughter.]

GREG NELSON: But, I mean, the focus that you feel there, for somebody that has worked on a part of the business that’s less strategic, has been really fun, really energizing, and just great to work on.

MARK MORRISSEY: And that’s been proven out as we’ve worked through step by step through the things that we’ve needed to do. There hasn’t been a time where they’ve said, no, we’re not going to invest to go get that stuff. There has been clear focus at every level of the organization. And again the quality of what they’ve produced so far–not that they’re done, there’s a lot of work still left to go–but the quality has been fantastic. And I have looked forward to the future stuff that we’ve started to talk about here.

BOOMTOWN: Who do you actually report to?

MARK MORRISSEY: Carol.

BOOMTOWN: Carol, directly.

MARK MORRISSEY: Yes.

We sat down when she asked me to take the job, and she decided she wanted to have direct engagement.

And then clearly because this role spans across each of the different functions, our entire search business is what we’re changing in order to facilitate that.

BOOMTOWN: So, you’re up here [in the Seattle area]. You’re up here, what, every week?

MARK MORRISSEY: I live in southern California, because I started with Panama.

BOOMTOWN: So, you come up every week?

MARK MORRISSEY: Yeah, yeah, at least once a week. And generally it’s Thursdays is when we have our joint operating team meeting.

GREG NELSON: Yeah, if you want to buy airline stocks, like Alaska (ALK) and Southwest (LUV), I mean, between our leads going down and Yahoo’s leads coming up, wow, it’s amazing.

MARK MORRISSEY: When we have a center of operation for decisions tend to be here a little bit more, but that when you get down a level and we’re into each individual team’s discussion, like the algo team, their big meetings are on Thursdays, and they switch back and forth between here and the Sunnyvale area.

GREG NELSON: A lot of what we’re working on right now is engineering migration; we try and put Mark in the rooms with engineering leaders and whatever.

BOOMTOWN: Right, okay. And then you’ll continue to do that right through the…

MARK MORRISSEY: As long as it’s needed.

If you did not have the fortitude to listen to Yahoo’s annual investor day, which took place much of today at its Silicon Valley HQ, you can read all about it in the five detailed decks presented by top execs.

For your viewing pleasure, BoomTown has embedded them all below, so you too can pretend you are a gullible, oops, canny, Wall Street analyst or institutional investor and start formulating some theories about the future of Yahoo (YHOO).

To its credit, what I heard of the presentation–by phone, since the media were barred from the event itself and the video was messed up–was pretty well done, if a little too kitchen-sinky (as in, here’s everything!).

The day did feature sharp performances from peppy new Chief Products Officer Blake Irving (he voted with his feet, apparently, by coming to Yahoo) and head social dude Cody Simms.

Here are Irving’s slides on products, as well as slides from Scott Burke, VP of Data and Analytics, with the numbers; Mark Morrissey, SVP of Search Alliance Transition, on the nascent partnership deal with Microsoft (MSFT); Hilary Schneider, EVP of Yahoo Americas, on advertising; and Tim Morse, CFO, on moolah.

Enjoy:

Blake Irving

Scott Burke

Mark Morrissey

Hilary Schneider

Tim Morse

Today, Yahoo sent out an invite for a press conference in New York on Monday with a mysterioso tone:

It read, vaguely:

“Please join Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz for an exciting announcement about providing global consumers with rich online and mobile experiences, and bringing forward a new era in keeping consumers connected.”

That’s all it took to get BoomTown on the horn to find out what that meant.

And, according to sources, that will be a deal with Finland-based mobile phone giant Nokia (NOK) to build Yahoo (YHOO) email, search and other applications and services into a range of its devices.

While the pair had once discussed Nokia making a Yahoo-centric phone, sources said that is unlikely to be part of this deal.

Such a partnership–code-named “Project Nike” after the Greek goddess of victory and not the sneaker–has been batted around for many years between the companies without result, even as Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) have grabbed the spotlight and business in the exploding smartphone market.

Yahoo has had a range of various mobile initiatives and has had many, mostly failed, partnerships with carriers and telecom makers.

But without its own phone or mobile operating system, such as Google’s Android, the Internet giant is essentially nowhere in what has become the most important digital sector today.

Nokia, which makes more mobile devices–mostly “feature” phones, not smartphones–than any other company, has also struggled to keep up the lightning-fast pace of innovation and has been looking for ways to compete as the landscape shifts dramatically.

That’s why the long-festering deal was placed again on the fast track, especially by Bartz, who has put a lot of emphasis of late on showing Yahoo to be more relevant and cutting-edge.

Thus, the Nokia deal is likely to be a splashy centerpiece of next week’s investor day on Wednesday in Silicon Valley, which will feature Bartz and her senior management, including Americas EVP Hilary Schneider.

Schneider has played a lead role in the Nokia deal, which sources said closed two to three weeks ago.

Bartz will also be appearing at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York next week, a speaker addition that will be announced soon, where she is likely to discuss the deal.

Yahoo has been on a bit of a deal tear of late, purchasing social publishing start-up Associated Content for $90 million earlier this week.

And while the Nokia deal will likely garner a lot of attention when announced, execution will–as usual–be key in determining if this works, especially since both companies are now in a much weaker position.

“Recently, Nokia has offered devices that people don’t want and Yahoo has launched mobile services that they don’t want,” said one person familiar with the talks. “Perhaps in working together, they will find a way to finally create some value.”

Yahoo declined to comment and Nokia has not responded to an email I sent tonight.

Even though they are two of the Internet’s largest advertising businesses, both Yahoo and Microsoft are without top execs to lead those units.

Worse, both are just entering a complex online ad sales and search partnership together, which will require a lot of management firepower.

Last week, BoomTown reported the departure of Yahoo’s head for the key North American market, Joanne Bradford, for a new job at social media start-up Demand Media. She starts there Monday.

It was a move that sent reverberations throughout the online ad market.

Less known, though, is that Microsoft (MSFT) has also been looking for almost a year for someone to head up its online ad sales force globally.

Yahoo (YHOO) is just starting its search to replace Bradford–with her boss, U.S. head Hilary Schneider, taking over on an interim basis.

In fact, even Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is pitching in, giving Bradford’s staff a talking to earlier this week about the need to press on.

Both Yahoo execs said the company will be looking at both internal and external candidates.

Until then, said a Yahoo spokeswoman, in the boringest quote ever uttered: “Yahoo! has leadership bench strength and we continue to be committed in delivering wow experiences to both users and advertisers.”

Not to worry about obfuscation, as BoomTown has the scoop!

Internally, the key execs being eyeballed include 11-year Yahoo veteran Mitch Spolan, VP of North American sales, and Seth Dallaire, a former Microsoft exec whom Bradford brought to the company last fall as VP of mid-market sales, a newly-created role responsible for all mid-market sales efforts across search and display advertising.

Another former Microsoft exec, Erika Nardini, VP of brand packaging, is also mentioned a lot as a possibility and is well-liked by the sales force at Yahoo.

Still, many feel that with the exodus of such a high-profile exec as Bradford, Yahoo has to attract another big name to replace her.

But externally, the pickings are much slimmer, with only two key names popping up as top choices.

One is a former Yahoo, Jacki Kelley, a longtime online ad exec who is now North American president of Universal McCann, a unit of the Interpublic Group (IPG) agency. Besides Yahoo, Kelley has worked at Gannett’s (GCI) USA Today and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO).

The second is Kathy Kayse, a well-regarded former AOL (AOL) ad exec, who now is in charge of digital ad sales at Discovery Communications (DISCA). Kayse also had a long career at Time Warner (TWX).

(Both are pictured here, Kelley at left and Kayse on the right.)

Microsoft is a dicier proposition, with exactly zero internal candidates considered qualified to lead the online ad sales effort, a job that would report directly into Corporate VP for Consumer & Online Darren Huston.

Microsoft has been searching for a long time now, with feelers all over the industry. A variety of names pops up, from new MySpace ad head Nada Stirratt to Bradford–also a former Microsoftie–herself.

In fact, the paucity of experienced execs to handle these complex jobs–which include the need to understand premium, network and search ad sales, as well as highly technical systems–is clear.

“Neither of these jobs are easy and, in many ways, a giant nightmare,” joked one online ad sales exec.

According to several sources, Yahoo’s SVP of U.S. Revenue and Market Development Joanne Bradford (pictured here) is planning on leaving the Internet giant to take a new position as chief revenue officer of online content upstart Demand Media.

The surprise move is sure to have reverberations throughout the online advertising arena, but more so at Yahoo (YHOO), where Bradford’s job encompasses a wide range of key revenue-generating duties.

She has also been tapped as one of the execs to play a key role in the recently approved search and online ad partnership with Microsoft (MSFT).

Yahoo declined to comment. BoomTown has also contacted Demand and is awaiting comment.

Bradford had actually once been a Microsoft exec, serving as VP and chief media officer of MSN Media Network. She had worked at BusinessWeek before that.

Bradford came to Yahoo in the fall of 2008, at the tail end of the tenure of Co-founder Jerry Yang, who stepped in as CEO after the previous CEO Terry Semel departed.

Immediately previous to her job at Yahoo, she had been helming national ad sales at then-trendy Los Angeles-based ad services company Spot Runner.

Demand will be her second time going from a large company to more of a start-up.

But–unlike the troubled Spot Runner where Bradford worked for only six months–Demand has been on a growth tear of late with a social media strategy that is also being pursued by AOL (AOL) and others.

It owns heavily trafficked sites, such as how-to juggernaut eHow and the health- and fitness-focused Livestrong.com, putting Demand in the list of the top 20 Web properties.

It reportedly has about $200 million in annual revenue–mostly from advertising, but also from a domain registration business–and is profitable with several hundred employees.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company is headed by serial entrepreneur Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), former chairman of Intermix Media. Intermix was the parent company of MySpace, which was sold to News Corp. (NWS).

Armed with an astonishing $355 million in funding from a range of prominent investors, he has been trying to fight some mainstream media depictions of his social media content company, especially one report that called Demand a “content mill.”

Via its Demand Studios, the company uses an army of freelancers to produce all kinds of content for its sites and others, using a complex automated system, but which also includes vetting and editing.

In fact, irked at the characterization of Demand as a content spammer, Rosenblatt even issued a manifesto for Demand in January.

“There has been so much misinformation about our model and what we actually do, that I thought it was a good idea for our company and those who work for us to lay out our principles,” said Rosenblatt in an interview with me at the time. “We are so different from traditional journalism, which I have nothing but admiration for, so it was time to make people understand that.”

The role of Demand Media, said Rosenblatt, was to help readers solve problems, laugh and get good advice, while figuring out how to create a profitable media business in the digital age.

(Walt Mossberg and I have invited Rosenblatt to share the stage at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June, along with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica, to talk about it all.)

If Rosenblatt is successful, Demand appears to be aiming for an IPO or merger with another company. Ironically, Demand has also been eyed by Yahoo in the past, as a possible acquisition.

Nabbing a top Web exec like Bradford from Yahoo is obviously a definite step in raising the stakes for Demand with big, established advertisers.

That’s because Bradford is well-regarded in the industry and is a prominent player. She recently signed a high-profile deal with Hollywood producer Ben Silverman to create premium content for Yahoo.

Bradford’s departure will be seen, both internally and externally, as a definite blow to turnaround efforts by CEO Carol Bartz. Bradford currently reports to Hilary Schneider, EVP of Yahoo’s U.S unit.

My reporting does not indicate that Yahoo’s top brass know about Bradford’s expected move, so it is not clear who would replace her at the Silicon Valley icon, which has been hard hit by an exodus of talent over the last two years.

Internal candidates could include 11-year Yahoo veteran Mitch Spolan, VP of North American sales, or Seth Dallaire, a former Microsoft exec whom Bradford brought to the company last fall as VP of mid-market sales, a newly-created role responsible for all mid-market sales efforts across search and display advertising.

More to come, obviously…

The deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter, involves a three-year traffic agreement under which Monster will become the provider of career and job content on the Yahoo (YHOO) homepage in the U.S. and Canada.

Obviously a smart move for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, who has been trying to narrow the company’s focus to its core portal business–most recently by selling email technology provider Zimbra to VMware (VMW).

Now, if only Bartz can unload Yahoo Games and Yahoo Shopping.

The release, below.

Monster to Acquire HotJobs Business and Enter into Multi-year Traffic Agreement with Yahoo!
NEW YORK & MAYNARD, Mass., Feb 03, 2010 —— Monster Worldwide, Inc. (MWW 16.42, +0.38, +2.37%) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Yahoo! HotJobs, a leading online recruitment website, from Yahoo! (YHOO 15.46, +0.29, +1.91%) for $225 million in cash. Monster and Yahoo! have also entered into a three year commercial traffic agreement, to take effect upon the closing of the acquisition, in which Monster will become Yahoo!‘s provider of career and job content on the Yahoo! homepage in the United States and Canada. The traffic agreement calls for performance based annual payments calculated by clicks and expressions of interest, subject to annual floors and ceilings. In addition, the traffic agreement provides Monster with an exclusive right for a period of time following the closing of the acquisition to negotiate similar traffic agreements with Yahoo! properties on a global basis, including countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, subject to certain limitations.

“HotJobs with its significant customer base plus the traffic agreement are an ideal complement to Monster’s innovative recruitment solutions and global reach,” said Sal Iannuzzi, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Monster Worldwide. “These agreements, combined with Monster’s career Communities and our recently introduced 6Sense(TM) semantic search technology, will bring substantial new benefits for employers seeking more qualified candidates and job seekers searching for more relevant opportunities across a wider range of industries—globally.”

“Bringing together Monster and HotJobs creates even greater access and opportunities for both recruiters and job seekers,” said Hilary Schneider, EVP, Yahoo! (NSDQ: YHOO). “The transaction with Monster enables us to continue to provide an important service to our users through the traffic agreement. Yahoo! remains focused on its core businesses and delivering exceptional experiences to users, partners and advertisers.”

Monster believes that the acquisition of HotJobs and the traffic agreement with Yahoo! will provide a number of benefits to jobseekers and employers, who today have more diverse competitive choices than ever before, and a value to all of its stakeholders, including its shareholders. These include:

Anticipated increase in job matches and search efficiencies–By bringing more diverse job and career opportunities, tools and resources together in one place, employers and job seekers will enjoy greater convenience and more precise search results and better matches with Monster’s patented 6Sense(TM) search technology and other innovative products.

Expected expansion of job seeker pool for employers–Monster will be able to offer its employers a significantly larger pool of candidates across diverse geographies and industries. Based on Media Metrix comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) reporting, last year HotJobs averaged 12.6 million unique visitors per month.

Expected expansion of the number of job postings across industries for job seekers–Through the combination of Monster and HotJobs job postings, job seekers will have access to more job opportunities in one place in those industries currently leading job creation, including healthcare, finance and insurance, retail, manufacturing, information and wholesale trade.

Broader reach anticipated for recruitment advertising through additional media alliances and reseller agreement–With the addition of HotJobs’s network of more than 600 daily and weekly newspapers, Monster’s alliances with local papers will grow to a total of approximately 1,000, giving Monster reach in all 50 states. The additional newspaper alliances, through their online and print classified ads, will further Monster’s current strategy of connecting job seekers with smaller, local businesses, particularly in healthcare, education, and skilled and hourly job categories.

Yahoo! will continue to manage its broader Newspaper Consortium (NPC) partnership, including providing both search and display advertising, content distribution, and its ad-serving platform, to newspapers in its NPC.

The transaction is subject to clearance under Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is currently expected to close sometime during the third quarter of 2010, subject to regulatory review. Monster expects to realize operating synergies from the acquisition and currently anticipates the transaction will be breakeven on a pro forma full year earnings in 2010 and accretive thereafter, inclusive of the costs incurred under the traffic agreement.

Stone Key Partners LLC and Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as financial advisors to Monster in connection with this transaction. Allen & Company LLC provided a fairness opinion to Monster’s Board.

News was actually committed during Yahoo’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call today when CEO Carol Bartz noted that the company would disable its irksome “hover interaction” on the homepage and that the Internet giant has restructured its international business.

Yahoo (YHOO) reported results earlier today that slightly exceeded expectations in the fourth quarter, but it was no blowout.

Said a Yahoo spokeswoman in an email to BoomTown about dumping the hover:

“We are in the process of making a change to the hover interaction and it should be live in all markets that have the new homepage by late tonight. To give people more control over their experience, we are adding the ability to select from either a ‘hover’ or ‘click’ interaction for activating previews of apps in the My Favorites section. The default setting will be a click interaction, but people can also use a hover interaction by selecting that option as their default preference. You should see this change on your own homepage very soon.”

The hover feature, while initially touted as giving users easy access to widgets on the homepage, has been widely decried by advertisers because it essentially covers other ads at the top of the page, which are Yahoo’s most lucrative inventory.

Also, simply put, the hover is super-annoying.

Back in July when Yahoo rolled out the new homepage design, though, the company was high on the hover. (You can see it in action below; click on the image to make it larger.)

This was the most striking change in the homepage overhaul, in fact, featuring a prominent My Favorites area on the left side with dozens of specially designed applications–email, stocks and third-party sites like Facebook, among others–that users could customize and view through quick hovering glimpses.

Advertising popped up when hovering over the apps, which was Yahoo’s solution to the alternative of sending users away from the site when they clicked the apps.

In addition, Bartz said in the call that Yahoo’s international operations would be rejiggered, after an ultimately fruitless search for a new head of the unit. Bartz said she had not been able to find a qualified exec to run international, so she decided to change the set-up.

International ops will be reduced from four regions to three–Americas; Europe, Middle East, Africa; and Asia Pacific–with Emerging Markets tucked into them.

They will report to Bartz directly–with current Emerging Markets head Keith Nilsson taking the job of Global Initiatives SVP, also reporting to her.

Wrote another Yahoo spokeswoman:

“Yahoo! has reorganized our regions to strengthen focus on emerging countries, and to align company-wide resources and expertise against the company’s vision to be the center of people’s online lives. Effective April 1, the structure will be made up of three regions: The Americas, EMEA and APAC. Our Emerging Markets region, formerly separate, will be absorbed into these new regions to better support our work in countries with large and growing Internet populations. Yahoo! is making a further commitment to its global customers with the creation of a Global Initiatives SVP, reporting directly to Carol Bartz, CEO, focused on supporting global relationships and alliances.”

Rose Tsou heads up APAC, Rich Riley runs EMEA and Hilary Schneider helms the Americas.

David Ko (pictured here), head of Yahoo’s mobile division, has added the Internet giant’s vast media properties in the U.S. to his portfolio, according to several sources.

BoomTown recently reported that Ko was the likely person to take over as North American Audience head at Yahoo (YHOO), reporting to U.S. EVP Hilary Schneider.

With purview over programming and more for the main Yahoo media properties, such as News and Finance, he fills a slot left by the departure of Jeff Dossett in May.

Since then, the key Yahoo content division has been run jointly by Jimmy Pitaro, who heads Vertical Audience Experiences for Yahoo, and Tim Mayer, who is in charge of Search & Social Applications, as well as the powerful homepage of Yahoo. Both now report to Ko, who joined Yahoo in 2000, sources said.

But, in a related move, product development for mobile has moved from under Ko to CTO and EVP of Products Ari Balogh.

A similar move of Yahoo’s media properties took place earlier this year, shifting key tech development responsibility to a global product organization at Yahoo’s HQ in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Previously, as had been the case in mobile, such development had been mostly carried out by individual media properties.

The argument for the shift posits that centralizing product development of Yahoo offerings drives efficiencies, saves money, eliminates redundancies and accelerates growth around the world.

Those who do not like the idea think it is wrong to separate the development of a product from programming because the two are intricately dependent and need to be tweaked delicately.

But, said one source, mobile has been deemed by CEO Carol Bartz as “part of the core” at Yahoo instead of more an experimental offering as it has been viewed internally.

Thus, mobile apparently needs to be closely aligned to all product development going forward.

Ironically, one of Yahoo’s more high-profile mobile efforts, its Yahoo Go mobile software application and portal, which was launched to much fanfare at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas almost four years ago, will be shuttered Jan. 12, 2010.

Now, under Ko, Yahoo’s mobile efforts have been centered around building apps for smartphones, although that market has become increasingly dominated by players such as Apple (AAPL) with its iPhone, Google (GOOG) and its Android effort and many others.

Google also just bought an innovative mobile advertising company, AdMob, which gives it a headstart in this nascent arena.

Without its own device and a dominating strategy, Yahoo must use its Web heft to push its content into the mobile space.

Presumably, that is the thinking behind giving Yahoo’s mobile and media properties the same boss.

Ko, who has worked in a variety of areas at Yahoo, took over as SVP of Yahoo Mobile after Marco Boerries left in late February as EVP of the Connected Device Division, which now does not exist under that name.

He had run Yahoo’s mobile business in the Asia Pacific region.

According to Ko’s Yahoo bio, he previously worked at Salomon Smith Barney as a senior associate and analyst. He is a graduate of New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Ko, who lives in San Francisco with his family, the bio notes, inexplicably “enjoys reading tech blogs.”

Well, then, Dave, we hope you have enjoyed this post!

Anmuth says his research shows an increase in pricing for Google’s search ads over the past few months, particularly in the battered retail and auto sectors. His note comes a couple days after Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney raised his Google estimates, citing a dramatic improvement from mid-August to mid-September.

Other Google bulls: Investors, who have been pushing up the company’s shares since March (they’re now hovering near the $500 mark again), and CEO Eric Schmidt, who declared this week that “it’s clear that the worst is behind us.”

The tempered enthusiasm isn’t limited to Google’s chances, by the way. Mahaney also had good things to say about Yahoo’s (YHOO) chances as the economy recovers. While Yahoo is handing over its search business to Microsoft (MSFT), Carol Bartz and crew still dominate the display ad business, and that should be picking up as well, he said.

It is worth noting that Yahoo executives themselves were more cautious this week when asked to describe market trends: At an Advertising Week press conference, Bartz brought out her “still bumping along the bottom” line, while EVP Hilary Schneider said ad sales had stabilized but that she “wouldn’t go so far as to say as we’re seeing a full recovery.”

Unless I’m told otherwise, I’m only going to do this once. But for the record, Yahoo is going with the following spelling for its new slogan: “It Starts With Y!ou.” I don’t think that’s going to fly with consumers or copy editors, but we’ll see.

Also undetermined: Whether there will be any news unveiled at Yahoo’s press conference to roll out said slogan. But I’ll be here for you just in case. And in the meantime, you can find glimpses of the coming campaign at the bottom of this post.

The event begins: Boilerplate intro remarks from Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz, followed by CMO Elisa Steele. Steele shows off a Venn diagram that shows the intersection of “my world” and “the world.” Yahoo, apparently, is that intersection. “That’s where the yodel is.”

Steele reminds us that this is Yahoo’s first global marketing campaign. That’s old hat for Microsoft (MSFT) and something Google (GOOG) has never done. Ad campaigns will roll out in 10 countries, branding campaign will be in all territories.

Steele runs through some imagery that will be used in campaign. Yahoo users, apparently, comprise many races and creeds. But all of them are buff and/or skinny. Unless they’re pregnant. A video ad, meanwhile features an upgraded yodel.

OK. Time for Q&A:

Onstage: Bartz; Steele; EVP Hilary Schneider; Tapan Bhat, SVP Integrated Consumer Experiences; Penny Baldwin, SVP Global Integrated Marketing and Brand Management.

What’s the budget for the campaign?

Steele: “Over $100 million.”

Status of ad market? Also, what won’t you sell?

Schneider: Starting to see a stabilization. “Wouldn’t go so far as to say as we’re seeing a full recovery.”

Bartz: We’re still “bumping along the bottom.” Regarding sales, she dodges/reframes the question, talking about “focus” instead. “We’re just revisiting everything.” Is there anything you won’t sell? “Of course.” But no specifics. Will improve photo, video, “much, much better email.”

Please talk about the launch of Google Ad Exchange and its threat to you.

Schneider: “The reality is that the display marketplace is fragmented.” Our exchange (Right Media) is biggest, but it’s intuitive that there will be other exchanges. “We welcome Google.”

Why do a relaunch at all? Are consumers actually unhappy, or is it just advertisers and press and investors carping?

Bartz: “Advertisers follow consumers” and we need to “build circulation.” By doing this approach, “we get really good micro-insights for our advertisers.” She doesn’t explain how this will happen, though.

Steele: “Consumers want more from online advertising.” They’re asking for it.

What about video plans?

Bartz: “Video snacks” are crucial to consumers and advertisers. “A big emphasis” inside Yahoo. A “big cornerstone of our strategy.”

How long will campaign run? How will you measure success?

Steele: It’s funded for 15 months, and I expect it will run longer than that. Vague answers about management.

Some chat about search, which formally debuts today.

Will there be product-specific ads?

Steele: Launch of the campaign in each market will start with brand, and over time you’ll see more product ads, as “people get familiar with Yahoo again.”

One more time: Is Zimbra being shopped?

Bartz: No comment. But “what I will tell you is that Zimbra technology is very, very important to our mail system, and that’s one of the prime reasons that Yahoo bought Zimbra when it did…[but] the technology is already integrated into our system.”

How is this campaign different than other campaigns? You’ve had a lot of campaigns in the last 15 years.

Steele: I haven’t been here in past, but I’ve reviewed every campaign that has been done and this is radically different because it’s more than a campaign. Carol and Carol’s staff are all behind the concept of “you.” Everyone’s on board. “If this was just a marketing campaign or a slogan, then we’ve really failed.”

Bartz: This should remind you of the past, actually. That’s not a bad thing. On search: Search has evolved from the “10 blue links” days. She views background of search much like an Intel (INTC) chip, which everyone uses. But Dell’s (DELL) experience with that chip is different than HP’s (HPQ) experience, etc. Yahoo is stable at 19 percent of search business because users are on Yahoo and they like Yahoo search. “Yahoo search is great. It’s not Bing, it’s Yahoo search….What’s most important is that we drive upstream and provide a great experience, even though the plumbing is down here.”

Do users really like to customize their search (premise behind overhauled homepage)?

Bhat: Core group of 15 percent of users really into customization. Most other people say they want that but aren’t willing to do the work. So we’re doing incremental customization on the homepage. “This will be something that keeps growing over time.”

Will you be integrating text-messaging and other short messaging services into the homepage?

Bhat: Yes.

How is the antitrust scrutiny going (with regard to Microsoft search deal)?

Bartz: Just as we predicted. We stand by our original prediction that the deal will close early 2010.

Are we too obsessed about what’s new here?

Bartz: Yes. “People just decided to put a cloud over Yahoo’s head”…and decided that if we’re going to remove the cloud we had to show off something shiny and new. “If you get out of New York and Silicon Valley, everybody loves Yahoo.” I travel a lot and everyone loves it. “I just want to transport you guys out of this cynicism you’re in….Why are you so cynical? Why not be cynical about fricking Google? See…you got me…you got me pissed off.”

[Note. Some debate about whether Bartz used "fricking" instead of an actual curse. We'll go to tape later. Update: Apologies (and thanks to Business Insider's Nicholas Carlson, who shared his video with me). Bartz appears to have said "fricking" or "frigging" Google.]

[Sorry about interregnum there. Cursing got me wound up. Back to real-time.]

Where do you want to be in two years?

Bartz: Yahoo is the only site where you when you wake up in the morning and you want to know what’s going on everywhere about everything, you can find it one place. The company is unified around that spirit, “not about technology for technology’s sake, but about what that delivers.”

Why doesn’t Wall Street buy the Yahoo turnaround story even though Google has fared okay during this recession? 

Bartz: “Yahoo and Google are different companies. They are in different businesses…investors are somewhat like you guys, where they’re saying ‘let’s wait and see.’” About this direct comparison with Google: “We aren’t a comparable company. They aren’t us and we aren’t them.”

So whom would you like to be compared to?

Bartz: “Yahoo.” But the closest analog is AOL, actually. Google is a white page with a search box. We’re very personal. When you go to our page in India, it feels like India. Relevance is important. Personalization is important. That’s not Facebook’s strategy. That’s not Twitter. “Not to say we’re not part of the greater tech sector, and you’ve got to find some compares.” But Yahoo is unique. We’re doing okay with the world side; we have to work on the easy personalization that is the core of our product focus.

Please address the stock sale, Carol.

Bartz: “I didn’t sell anything.” I got restricted stock throughout the year; when it vests, it gets recorded as a sale. “I haven’t sold one penny of Yahoo stock. Thanks for asking, because it pissed me off when they said I sold. I wouldn’t do that.”

Q&A ends. More in a bit.