Microsoft–furious over a recent talent grab of its top advertising exec by Facebook–has been considering a wide range of options, including legal action to block the move, according to sources close to the situation.

Lawyer at both companies have been in back-and-forth talks in recent days after the hiring of Microsoft’s global ad sales head Carolyn Everson by the Silicon Valley social networking powerhouse to be its VP of global sales.

Among the more likely solutions being discussed: Barring Everson–a longtime ad sales exec who came to Microsoft from MTV Networks–from using any strategic information she learned at the company and also from contacting certain ad clients on behalf of Facebook for a certain period of time.

While a legal action to stop her from actually taking the position is the most serious option, it is certainly not without precedent for Microsoft. The company recently got a temporary restraining order to block one of its top government relations execs, Matt Miszewski, from working at Salesforce.com, pointing to non-compete and confidentiality contracts.

Whatever happens, it is clear the Everson hiring has infuriated Microsoft execs, especially CEO Steve Ballmer, since the company regards Facebook as a close partner. Microsoft is also a longtime investor in Facebook.

While considering a temporary restraining order against Everson in this kind of situation–since it is essentially the same job–is standard operating procedure for any company, several sources said tensions are higher than usual.

“This is just tone deaf on Facebook’s part not to think this would not be a problem,” said one person.

One particularly irksome aspect–top Facebook execs did not call Ballmer before news of the appointment leaked out to assuage the situation.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg did release a statement when BoomTown broke news of the move in mid-February, in an attempt to make nice.

“Microsoft was one of our earliest partners and is still one of our most valued,” she said, in part. “We look forward to continuing to expand our relationship with them.”

Her dulcet words have apparently not worked.

In fact, the talent raid came as a surprise to many at Microsoft, especially since Everson (pictured here) had been hired in June after a long search and had become a high-profile presence at internal and external Microsoft events.

That included organizing the splashy “Imagine 2011, Microsoft Advertising’s Marketing Leadership Summit.” The event is set to take place at the end of March at the software giant’s Redmond, Wa. HQ and will include an evening concert by the band Train.

Now she will be doing such things for Facebook, where Everson will be replacing longtime and well-regarded ad exec Mike Murphy, who left the Palo Alto, Calif., company last fall. She will report to former Googler David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations.

Having a top exec who is amenable to and well known by Madison Avenue is key for Facebook as it ramps up its business, in anticipation of an IPO next year.

Despite being private, Facebook has recently been valued at between $50 and $60 billion by investors, who have been eagerly buying up shares of the company on secondary markets.

Under Murphy and Fischer, ad sales have been doing well already. Facebook’s share of online display advertising has more than quadrupled, from about three percent to almost 14 percent of the nearly $9 billion U.S. market, according to a recent survey.

In growing so quickly, Facebook has grabbed ad revenue–reportedly $2 billion last year–from old online powerhouses, especially Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, and is also in a big fight with Google over premium ad sales.

Facebook’s surging usage and engagement are the reasons for the increased interest from advertisers, as well as its global growth in both market share and mindshare of consumers.

The opportunity at Facebook is clearly a big–and probably irresistible–move for the dynamic Everson, who has mostly worked in the mainstream media for much of her career.

Still, while movement of execs among top tech companies is not uncommon, there has been a lot less from Microsoft to Facebook.

Instead, Facebook has been most aggressive in its efforts to attract talent from Google.

No longer. In fact, the week before Facebook grabbed Everson, it also hired an up-and-coming exec, Chris Daniels, GM of Bing Mobile Product Management, to be its director of business development.

Still, there is some hiring war history between the companies. In late 2008, Microsoft’s Ballmer managed to lure former Yahoo exec Qi Lu to run its Online Services Division, several sources at both companies said, after he had told Facebook he would work there as its engineering lead. Lu had also been heavily recruited by Google.

Eventually, that was water under the bridge, which is what Facebook is hoping will happen with Microsoft over Everson.

Also important in the weighing of options at Microsoft is the obvious importance of keeping up good relations with Facebook. It is an important partnership, especially for its Bing search business, as an advantage over Google.

“Everyone is hoping to resolve this amicably,” said one person close to the situation. “There has been some damage to the relationship for sure, but the question is whether Microsoft wants to do something that would escalate that damage.”

Not surprisingly, both Facebook and Microsoft declined to comment on the fracas.

Apparently, it’s not only in Google’s pond where Facebook fishes for talent–the social networking giant has recruited Microsoft’s global advertising head Carolyn Everson as one of its top sales execs.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the hiring, after a query this afternoon by BoomTown. Everson will be VP of Global Sales at the Silicon Valley company, although is likely to be located in New York.

The move will surely cause some tensions with the software giant, which is both a prominent partner of and investor in Facebook, especially since Everson was only hired at Microsoft last June after a long search.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg addressed that issue in a statement:

“Microsoft was one of our earliest partners and is still one of our most valued. We have a long and strong relationship that includes search ads on our site, a social layer on Bing search results and a deep and popular integration with Xbox. They are a leader when it comes to unlocking the power of social for their already popular products and services. We look forward to continuing to expand our relationship with them.”

A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.

Despite the possible awkwardness between Facebook and Microsoft–hey, we stole your top sales exec, but you rock!–the move to Facebook is a big opportunity for Everson.

But, according to sources, the former MTV Networks ad exec had become frustrated by the intense focus on pushing traffic to Microsoft’s Bing search service from its MSN portal at the expense of premium ad sales.

In addition, with the massive search and advertising partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo now in place, Everson was also not able to offer search advertising from Microsoft to marketers in packages. Yahoo is now in charge of that offering.

Everson will essentially be replacing longtime and well-regarded Facebook ad exec Mike Murphy, who left the Palo Alto, Calif., company last fall. She will report to former Googler David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations.

But it was COO Sheryl Sandberg, said sources, who was most focused on Everson. In fact, she just “friended” Everson on Facebook this week, as did another top ad exec, Tom Arrix.

Having a top exec who is amenable to and well known by Madison Avenue is key for Facebook as it ramps up its business, in anticipation of an IPO next year.

Despite being private, Facebook has recently been valued at between $50 and $60 billion by investors, who have been eagerly buying up shares of the company on secondary markets.

Under Murphy and Fischer, ad sales have been doing well already. Facebook’s share of online display advertising has more than quadrupled, from about three percent to almost 14 percent of the nearly $9 billion U.S. market, according to a recent survey.

In growing so quickly, Facebook has grabbed ad revenue–reportedly $2 billion last year–from old online powerhouses, especially Yahoo and AOL, and is also in a big fight with Google over premium ad sales.

Facebook’s surging usage and engagement are the reasons for the increased interest from advertisers, as well as its global growth in both market share and mindshare of consumers.

Thus, the search for a Murphy replacement was far-ranging, and included interest in a number of prominent ad execs from traditional media giants and also ad agencies.

The appointment is a big move for the dynamic Everson, who has mostly worked in the mainstream media for much of her career.

Everson came to Microsoft from a job as EVP of Strategy and Operations for the MTV Networks U.S. ad sales department.

Interestingly, she was also on the short list of candidates Yahoo was once perusing to fill the key U.S. ad sales job after Joanne Bradford departed for Demand Media.

Mike Murphy–Facebook’s first head of advertising sales, who left the social networking giant in October to take some personal time off–seems done with relaxing.

He is now taking a part-time, but significant, role at online gaming phenom Zynga to help formulate its advertising strategy.

In addition, Murphy is also close to formalizing a consulting relationship with Facebook.

Given there has been strong interest from more obvious Facebook competitors in retaining Murphy–including Google and Twitter–his move to Zynga is probably the best outcome for it.

Although the relationship has been tense at times, Zynga remains one of Facebook’s major strategic partners.

Facebook has reportedly been close to filling Murphy’s job, talking to several major online ad execs recently, but has not yet replaced him.

While it is not clear what Murphy will be doing for Facebook, where former Google exec David Fischer runs the ad business, Murphy’s role at Zynga will be quite deep and could expand over time even more.

It will include overseeing the development of Zynga’s advertising strategy, team growth and advertising products, and creating new relationships with top brands.

After being contacted by BoomTown about the new job, Murphy confirmed it and said in a statement:

“Social games are becoming a core way for marketers to engage with their customers. Zynga’s network of games have created an incredible opportunity for advertisers to create passionate relationships and emotional connections with their customers.”

Indeed, as it moves toward an inevitable IPO later this year, Zynga is upping its focus on building its advertising business, aiming at selling its fast-growing audience and the frequency and engagement they use its casual gaming products.

At Zynga, Murphy will lead and build the team, scaling its relationships with big-name partners.

The company has already dipped its toe in this arena, integrating some major brands into its games in recent campaigns.

Such online-offline customer efforts, although early, have had strong adoption, such as a recent one to plant branded blueberry crops–organic!–in its flagship FarmVille game for General Mills cereals.

There has also been a McDonald’s-branded farm in FarmVille. (McReally.)

Interestingly, in an inside-Silicon-Valley-baseball way, the move to Zynga will reunite Murphy, the former Yahoo exec who ran global advertising strategy for Facebook for five years, with Owen Van Natta.

Van Natta was once COO of Facebook and hired Murphy there. He is now EVP of Business at Zynga.

Along with Murphy, Van Natta has also brought in Dani Dudeck as communications head from Myspace, where he had a rocky tenure as CEO of the News Corp. unit.

And Katie Geminder, who was a design and user interface exec at both Facebook and Myspace, is also now at Zynga in a similar full-time role.

At the time he announced his departure from Facebook in the fall, Murphy said he had decided to step down in order to take some personal time off, noting that hundreds of nights on the road over the years had been enough.

“For the last five years of hyper-growth here, I have been focused on Facebook,” said Murphy. “Now, I felt it was time to shift that focus to my family.”

And now, apparently, to Zynga.

Rosenthal had focused on mobile business development in recent years, overseeing Facebook’s relationships with some 300 mobile operators around the world. She is not departing for a specific opportunity, though she said it was likely she’ll end up involved in another start-up.

Rosenthal had joined the company in February 2006, making her one of its earliest remaining employees. She’s the latest of many early Facebookers, including the three Facebook co-founders other than Mark Zuckerberg, to depart over the years.

“I’ve started to feel the pull of some new ideas,” said Rosenthal, adding that she felt Facebook had “unlocked real opportunities at the convergence of mobile and social” that she wants to explore.

By way of explanation for her own and other early-Facebooker departures, Rosenthal contended it’s just that Facebookers tend to be entrepreneurial, and recognize opportunities to extend the social Web in new directions outside of Facebook’s core mission. “It’s very alluring to try a specific idea in an industry you’re passionate about,” she said.

But for now, Rosenthal wants to take some time off. The only specific future plan she would share is to ditch her smartphone for a feature phone for a while in order to “extract myself a little from technology.”

Rosenthal has her MBA from Stanford and previously worked at General Atlantic Partners and Zazzle. She said her replacement has not yet been found, but that Facebook is hiring internationally to have biz dev folks overseeing carrier relationships on a local basis from offices in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

Other significant recent Facebook departures have included ad sales head Mike Murphy, engineering director Aditya Agarwal and PR head Brandee Barker.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

BoomTown usually does not get all weepy over the departure of public relations folks at Internet companies, in that cynical I’ve-seen-’em-come-and-I’ve-seen-’em-go kind of way.

But the leaving of Brandee Barker (pictured here) from Facebook most certainly elicited a small single tear of sadness this morning, when she called into All Things Digital Global HQ to say she would no longer be tossing me her patented–and very endearing–hand-in-the-face “no comment” for the powerful social networking site.

After four long and tumultuous years, she leaves the company on Dec. 10.

(In a changing-of-the-guard theme, Barker follows longtime advertising sales exec Mike Murphy, who also recently resigned, out the door.)

In a statement, Facebook said:

“We can confirm Brandee is leaving Facebook to start a communications consulting business focused on early stage tech companies. We are grateful for her dedication and the company has benefited greatly from her contributions. We suspect Brandee’s future clients will also value her talents and experience and we wish her much success with her new venture.”

Indeed, although the geeks always get the credit, Facebook owes an awful lot to Barker, for helping its products and services stand out in a sea of competitors.

For certain, it was not as influential as it is today when Barker got there as its head of PR, just as the start-up was beginning to make itself known.

There were only seven million Facebook members when Barker joined, compared to 500 million today.

Still, the veteran communications exec was quickly aware of its power when 750,000 of those members protested against Facebook’s introduction of the initially controversial news feed.

“I had no idea when I took the job that it would be like that,” said Barker, who was employee No. 120 at Facebook, in an Interview with me this morning.

In fact, it has been like that ever since then, as she has navigated a series of triumphs and just as many mishaps for the company as it grew and grew.

One of her favorite moments, she told me, was the introduction of the Facebook platform at its inaugural F8 developers event several years ago.

“Mark [Zuckerberg] had a real vision and the craziness that followed it was an incredible experience,” said Barker, who was the one largely responsible for introducing the decidedly quirky co-founder and CEO of Facebook to the world.

For the most part, Barker shepherded him well, even as the fire hose of attention increased in media, consumer and regulatory pressure over issues ranging from the controversial founding of Facebook–Barker has a masters from Harvard University in Winklevii crisis management–to privacy snafus and more.

A lot of her ministrations were funny, though, as she remembered: “Another great moment was when I insisted Mark take a suitcase instead of a backpack to his first Davos in 2007, so I went out and bought him one.”

And let us not even get into the flip-flop controversies or when I snarkily called Zuckerberg “toddler CEO” to Lesley Stahl on “60 Minutes.”

Barker handled it all with grace and humor.

But as Facebook has grown to more than 1,500 employees and its business has boomed, Barker–who recently returned to the company after having a baby–decided that bigger was not better, at least for her.

“I had a pretty deep evaluation when I was away from the company that what I am good at and what I like is working with early-stage companies and their teams,” said Barker, who will start a communications consultancy. “At this point in my career, that’s what I want to do.”

Barker noted, in fact, that there were a lot of companies started by former early Facebook employees like her that might become clients, although she declined to be more specific.

In the end, another “no comment” for me from Barker!

I don’t mind, because here is my comment, on the record and for attribution: It’s a sad day for Facebook, and I’ll miss Brandee Barker very much.

Speaking of no comment, here is Barker in one of my favorite no comments, from behind a plant at a 2008 Silicon Valley luncheon for the German DLD conference:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101108/brandee-no-comment-barker-finally-comments-pr-honcho-leaving-facebook/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20101026/exclusive-facebooks-longtime-ad-sales-head-mike-murphy-to-depart-company/ http://allthingsd.com/20101026/exclusive-facebooks-longtime-ad-sales-head-mike-murphy-to-depart-company/#comments Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:51:23 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36143

Mike Murphy, Facebook’s VP of Global Sales, is leaving the company.

Facebook said the well-known advertising exec decided to step down in order to take some personal time off, which Murphy reiterated was the case in an interview with BoomTown, noting that hundreds of nights on the road over the years have been enough.

“For the last five years of hyper-growth here, I have been focused on Facebook,” said Murphy. “Now, I felt it was time to shift that focus to my family.”

Murphy will stay on at the Silicon Valley social networking powerhouse until December, helping with the transition. His staff was told this morning in an email from him.

Both he and his boss David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations, have discounted any notion of tension between them, since Fischer came on board at Facebook in March.

Murphy said he had been planning his departure for a while, and wanted to get through the most recent quarter to finally pull the trigger.

“It is something I have been thinking about for quite some time and I discussed it with David early on,” said Murphy, who noted Facebook execs tried to come up with other options at the company for him. “I wanted [my departure] to come at a time when I knew the team was in good hands.”

Fischer said that there are no precise plans to replace Murphy yet, but that Facebook would “evaluate a lot of options.”

Interestingly, while he said he had no plans for now, Murphy is perhaps the dream candidate for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to run its ad sales business, which has been drifting of late due to a series of exec departures.

In fact, Murphy is an ex-Yahoo exec, having come to Facebook in 2006 directly from a stint as VP of Media Sales for the Western region at the Internet giant.

At Facebook, Murphy has led media strategy, advertising sales and account management. He came to the company five years ago, when it was not the social networking powerhouse it is today.

He is one of a handful of experienced online ad sales leaders in the business, and the affable exec is very well-liked in the industry.

Murphy also worked at Ziff-Davis Publishing and CMP Media.

Reflecting on all the changes that have gone on in online advertising, especially with the advent of social media, Murphy noted how quickly the landscape has changed.

“It’s been an amazing progression for marketers from how you launch a campaign to having a presence on Facebook to how you make an emotional connection with your customer,” said Murphy. “The momentum has been huge.”

That’s why Murphy said he expects to eventually return to the fray, once he has spent some quality time at home and has a “clear head.”

For a look back, here is a video interview I did with Murphy in 2007, back in the days when Owen Van Natta, also in the video, was COO at the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101026/exclusive-facebooks-longtime-ad-sales-head-mike-murphy-to-depart-company/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100712/what-ebay-rich-whitman-really-wants-to-do-is-direct/ http://allthingsd.com/20100712/what-ebay-rich-whitman-really-wants-to-do-is-direct/#comments Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:53:27 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=30477

It’s worth checking out an article in the New York Times today that points to a very questionable, but–as it turned out–politically savvy angel investment made by former eBay CEO and now Republican candidate for California governor Meg Whitman.

The piece, by Michael Luo, alleges that Whitman’s $1 million investment in late 2008 in a Hollywood entertainment company called Tools Down! Productions was made to ease a prominent Republican strategist away from working for her rival for the GOP nod.

That would be Steve Poizner, who lost to Whitman in the recent primary and who was close to working with Mike Murphy. Instead, with a little help from the piles of cash Whitman made from eBay (EBAY) stock, Murphy never took the job.

Well, not the Poizner job, at least. After telling people he was sick of politics and then getting the Whitman money days later for his still credit-free movie production company, Murphy became an adviser to Whitman a year later.

The bigger story the Times is touting, but does not quite deliver, is the advent of super-rich candidates in races this round, including another tech exec, former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Carly Fiorina. She won the California GOP Senate primary.

This kind of thing has happened before, of course.

But what’s interesting is to see Silicon Valley’s digitally enabled moneybags step up to the very stained political table and jump right into the game.

What’s next? Google (GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin buying everyone in San Francisco lattes for life to become mayor? Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s bid for president of the United States, via the leveraging of embarrassing photos from the social networking site?

And thank goodness Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT) never wanted to run for office.

The Whitman campaign told the Times that the investment was disclosed and justified in that she had ample entertainment interest from her days as a strategic planning exec at Disney (DIS) and also as a board member of DreamWorks Animation SKG (DWA).

Which is exactly what they would say, of course.

Thus, perhaps it is time to take a moment with Jimmy Stewart in a video clip from the classic film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” of his most potent “Lost Causes” scene:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100712/what-ebay-rich-whitman-really-wants-to-do-is-direct/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080102/best-of-2007-video-kara-visits-facebook/ http://allthingsd.com/20080102/best-of-2007-video-kara-visits-facebook/#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:11:09 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080102/best-of-2007-video-kara-visits-facebook/ Over the next week, I will be posting the most popular videos on BoomTown from 2007.

Here’s a video I did on a visit to Facebook’s HQ in Palo Alto, Calif., that I made in July, 2007. In it, I take a gander at the offices (complete with artistic graffiti) and chat with a passel of nice execs at the hot social-networking site like Mike Murphy, Owen Van Natta and others.

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080102/best-of-2007-video-kara-visits-facebook/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20071031/rumors-rumors-everywhere-but-not-a-lot-to-think-except-aol-quigo/ http://allthingsd.com/20071031/rumors-rumors-everywhere-but-not-a-lot-to-think-except-aol-quigo/#comments Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:54:08 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20071031/rumors-rumors-everywhere-but-not-a-lot-to-think-except-aol-quigo/ So there is a lot of swirl out there about a spate of companies and their supposed plans.

In the interest of time-saving, we will group them all here in one easy list that you can clip and save.

DEALS AFOOT?:

Yes, there is always a lot of sniffing around out there, especially given that a lot of Web 2.0 companies are more likely to be acquired than go public.

Do look for smaller ad networks to be bought up in the wake of a spate of bigger sales of late–DoubleClick to Google, aQuantive to Microsoft, Right Media and BlueLithium to Yahoo).

Now, it looks like AOL might get into the game again, after presciently grabbing Advertising.com way back in 2004 for $435 million. The new target, in a deal that a source close to the company said is “80% there,” is Quigo–the content-targeting ad network. The price? About $300 million.

Less likely for action are some other names being bandied about.

WordPress (the blogging software and hosting company AllThingsD.com uses), for example, has some suitors and is contemplating a sale after some offers. But don’t bet on it.

And RockYou is not being bought by, say, Yahoo–at least not this week. While rumors of wild valuations for the No. 2 maker of widgets on Facebook (Slide usually outranks it) have been bandied about, it has not had any significant talks with anyone.

GOOGLE GETS FRIENDLY (EXCEPT TO FACEBOOK):

As we wrote in a post yesterday, contrary to rumors, the Google project (codenamed Maka-Maka, doubtlessly by that wacky pair, Graham Spencer and Joe Kraus, pictured here, formerly of JotSpot and Excite, who worked on it) was imminent. As in now. Right now. This instant.

Officially named OpenSocial, it is a way to create a social graph over the Web that is open to third-party apps friendly and, as I wrote, is indeed both a “real attempted assault on the Facebook platform or more of a way to widely spread the gospel of social networking (and, thus, an assault on the Facebook platform).”

While Google has signed a bunch of prominent partners, it has yet to grab the No. 2 social-networking site Facebook (unlikely) and the No. 1 MySpace (much more likely, but don’t hold your breath). But it’s definitely a put-up-or-shut-up dare by the search giant, especially given Facebook’s professed love of openness.

Who knows if it will catch on, given that it is clear it is all in the hands of the apps developer community. If not, it will surely be a big black eye for Google, if it can’t motivate widely beyond search.

FACEBOOK IS A BIG BOY NOW:

It looks like former Yahoo Mike Murphy–who heads ad sales at Facebook (and is pictured here)–is finally getting his ducks in order with a new ad offering to be called SocialAds next week at its big confab in NYC.

Unlike the competition’s contextual ad programs, this will be squarely aimed at people’s self-expressed interests and demographics.

And, of course, Microsoft will be Facebook’s partner in serving the ads, for now at least. Good lord, it has bought and paid for this date many times over, so a fine time must be had by all!

I can’t tell you how thrilled we are that Facebook (and that nice boy Mark Zuckerberg) is finally putting some meat on its skinny little business model to take advantage of its fast-growing popularity.

But let’s keep in mind that it remains to be seen how lucrative this kind of ad network is and how scalable it is across the Web (and not just on Facebook).

It will also be interesting to see if the offering is truly innovative and different than existing solutions–or if it just serves up some dumb and useless ad for blood supplies, because you happen to be playing Vampire a little too much.

(We’re teasing, Mark, but not very much at all.)

OH, YES, THAT GPHONE:

More open verbiage from Google, which will roll out a mobile-phone operating system of software and services for a new kind of open cellphone sometime in this millennium (are you as sick of the speculation about the Gphone as I am?).

Since we’re talked out, here’s a much better Wall Street Journal Online video on the subject:

BOVINE UPDATE

Yahoo’s holy cows? Still sacred and going strong!

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20071031/rumors-rumors-everywhere-but-not-a-lot-to-think-except-aol-quigo/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20070806/facebook-ad-guy-deja-vu/ http://allthingsd.com/20070806/facebook-ad-guy-deja-vu/#comments Mon, 06 Aug 2007 07:01:27 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070806/facebook-ad-guy-deja-vu/ Since I will be posting a piece later today about Yahoo’s new ad guy, here is a link–for those who did not see it–about my recent visit to Facebook, including a long interview with Mike Murphy, Facebook’s ad guy. The video is also posted below again.

Murphy, in fact, came from Yahoo, where he was a longtime and high-ranking sales exec. He hopes to jump-start the Facebook business and prove that social networking can be just as lucrative an advertising market as it has been and continues to be–despite the recent spate of difficulties–for Yahoo.

Here’s the video of Murphy talking about it:

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070806/facebook-ad-guy-deja-vu/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070719/more-on-chatty-marketingblah-blah-blah/ http://allthingsd.com/20070719/more-on-chatty-marketingblah-blah-blah/#comments Thu, 19 Jul 2007 11:57:21 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070719/more-on-chatty-marketingblah-blah-blah/

Is there a trend in my post yesterday about the deal former Hollywood execs Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman struck with Pepsi to make original online content that the entertainment and marketing arm of the beverage giant will have a chance to fund and sponsor?

“We want to create great online content … and also something that is more than a glorified Internet ad at the same time,” said Braun to me yesterday. “So we’ll work with Pepsi hand-in-hand to bake new kinds of ad solutions right in organically at the earliest possible moment.”

What struck me was that this was also the same line being touted by Facebook ad sales majordomo Mike Murphy, whom I interviewed Tuesday about what it will take to make the popular social-network site as popular with advertisers. (See video below again.)

Bandying about the phrase, “return on involvement,” he noted that it was his job to show marketers that becoming part of the conversation could be as important as much-measured click-through rates.

“Banners are great for branding, but this is a more relevant message that leverages social media,” said Murphy. “If we can help you make your idea or product relevant to a consumer and get the best involvement rate … it’s a different game.”

And then last month Valleywag posted here on an amazingly idiotic roundelay about a group of bloggers associated with John Battelle’s Federated Media being part of a Microsoft ad campaign, by weighing in on what the software giant’s “people ready” catchphrase meant to them.

I was going to write about it, and even talked to Om Malik (he was sorry and withdrew from the campaign) and Battelle (not so sorry, noting to me that how we all look at marketing has changed in the new paradigm).

But the prospect of headache-inducing debates about it that would go precisely nowhere stopped me cold. I come from an Italian family and I know from pointless arguments.

My own conclusion was that, even with all the disclosure, which could have been a lot better, it was probably a dicey and even flat-out wrong thing for most bloggers to do.

Except apparently for Michael “Pound Sand” Arrington, who doesn’t appear to care what most anyone thinks anyway. (Are you looking at me?)

But Battelle has kept bringing up another interesting phrase called “conversational marketing”–which again refers to engaging audiences more deeply with advertisers. Federated, in fact, is having a “Conversational Marketing Summit” in mid-September, with a laundry list of Web marketing honchos.

It apparently “brings together leaders in conversational media and marketing for a two-day dialog around the issues, lessons and opportunities of this emerging medium.”

I, for one, am looking forward to understanding what it all means, despite the fact my initial reaction is suspicious, as a reporter who naturally worries about the sidling up of ad-sales people to the editorial process.

That feeling of distaste was articulated by Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee, who wrote that the Pepsi deal “sounds kind of sleazy, honestly.”

Well, we shall see, of course, and this is just entertainment we’re talking about. And, perhaps more important, it seems to be an inevitable drift, given trends toward increased interactivity by consumers, especially younger ones.

“A lot of online content is already developed and ads and marketing are slapped on afterward,” Russell Weiner, vice president of marketing for colas at Pepsi-Cola North America told me yesterday. “We want to be part of the DNA of a show from the very beginning.”

And that, I think, is what they call the origin of the species. What species that might be, we shall all see soon enough.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070719/more-on-chatty-marketingblah-blah-blah/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070718/kara-visits-facebook/ http://allthingsd.com/20070718/kara-visits-facebook/#comments Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:40:51 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20070718/kara-visits-facebook/ It’s true I have been bugging Facebook–the Internet company of the moment–about showing me the money, that is to say the secret master plan to turn the popular social-networking site into a cash-gushing business.

Thus, I finally got a sit-down with the Money Guy at Facebook, Media Sales Vice President Mike Murphy.

I had known the affable Murphy (pictured here) only a little bit from his many years at Yahoo, which he left for Facebook in March 2006 in what now looks like a particularly prescient move, given the Internet giant’s recent ad troubles and Facebook’s seemingly high-flying trajectory.

I use the word seemingly, because no one really knows what the record or the prospects of Facebook are exactly when it comes to becoming an ad powerhouse, like Google and, yes, Yahoo, which did more than $1 billion in revenue for the current quarter, as weak as results were.

Here’s a video I made of my visit to Facebook HQ in Palo Alto, Calif., seeking answers to this and other questions from Murphy, as well as a drop-in from COO Owen Van Natta (who mimicked founder Mark Zuckerberg and called me “nasty” on this video, even as he chatted away, which questions his credibility related to my true level of meanness), PR head Brandee Barker and others.

[ See post to watch video ]

To get a lay of the land, Facebook’s total revenues have been reported to hover around $100 million and it is profitable, execs and investors have told me many times.

I am not sure how much profit that means–and Facebook isn’t saying–due to the growth in staff and bandwidth demands of late.

Murphy, who would not confirm any total figure, told me about half their revenue was due to Facebook’s own ad efforts and the other half to a sweetheart deal the start-up struck with Microsoft to sell its banner ads with a guaranteed revenue payment that has been extended to 2011.

The Microsoft connection–made right after Google forked over $900 million in guarantees to News Corp.’s MySpace, the by-far dominant social network–is a nice padding for the company to have, of course.

But most of Facebook’s future depends on how Murphy and his team can translate its growing popularity and frequency by users into ad sales.

As some who read this blog might know, I often give hats off to founder Zuckerberg and his team for Facebook’s clean, handsome and highly usable service, as well as its growth.

But without other revenue streams like subscription fees, it needs to get its ad business really cooking and fast.

Or perhaps not so fast, according to Murphy and other execs at Facebook, who say building the core service and rolling out better features is the goal for now.

That will give them time to figure out the real options for ad growth on Facebook, including dreaming up a whole new way of marketing, which Murphy calls “return on involvement.”

I like his chutzpah using this term, and I vaguely understand it to mean the ability of a marketer to develop a closer relationship with a customer.

It’s been called at various times “conversational marketing” too, but it is the most credible idea for highly interactive Web sites like Facebook to pitch a new story to advertisers.

In fact, story is one of the ways Facebook is selling ads, allowing marketers to insert them in a targeted way into its powerful newsfeeds of its users, linking back to a marketing site on Facebook. When that happens, it can then go out to that person’s friends and so on and so on and so on.

If the marketer makes a good enough offer or is clever enough, then the impact could indeed be more significant than simply slapping up a banner and hoping for the best. Of course, there are those banners and links, too.

“Banners are great for branding, but this is a more relevant message that leverages social media,” argued Murphy, who said the ad sell is that it produces a cornucopia of “trusted referrals,” which is basically a nice phrase for leads.

How well that works is a big question, and some reports–though few have real proof–indicate that marketers are still on the fence about the effectiveness of this kind of marketing on Facebook.

Murphy bristled at this characterization, noting that it was his job to show marketers that becoming part of the conversation could be as important as much-measured click-through rates.

“It is an exceptionally different experience,” he said. “If we can help you make your idea or product relevant to a consumer and get the best involvement rate … it’s a different game.”

In any case, Murphy thinks the real point for Facebook right now is to build its user experience, which is more important than inundating the service with ads.

“We’re building a consumer experience here … and we’re happy to fund that development,” he said. “A lot of Web companies would love to start all over and try new concepts and not have the expectations about the delivery of revenue.”

Wouldn’t we all, Mike?

Although expectations, as an old pro like Murphy knows, can certainly cut both ways. In fact, they always do.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

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