Okay, okay, we get it: Morgan Stanley got the coveted left-hand lead position on Facebook’s blockbuster IPO filing. Goldman Sachs is there, too, but in the third-place, always-a-bridesmaid spo,t and is crying big salty tears about the injustice of it all.

It’s hard to feel badly for overpaid investment bankers, and focusing on them is kind of like endlessly discussing the lawyers who processed your mortgage, when the focus should be on the house you’re buying.

Does anyone except a few Richie Rich ZIP Codes in Manhattan care about this one deet of the initial public offering of the social networking giant?

Nope, but there is so little real news ahead of the IPO filing expected today that this is what we are chomping on this morning, as everyone awaits the big doc drop at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sources said it is likely to come this afternoon rather than this morning, though. And, perish the thought, all that dotting of I’s and crossing of T’s could delay it to tomorrow, even (unlikely, but mebbe!).

Sigh.

Tidbit: Facebook was actually founded the first Wednesday in February of 2004 in an undergraduate dorm room at Harvard University, like today but eight years later.

Thus, here’s a boring Facebook history timeline chart to look at:

Okay, that was really dull.

What up? The board met, the spinmeisters are at the ready and, most of all, Silicon Valley is stoked to make some more arrogant badillionaires.

Now, hopefully, we’ll get the real news about Facebook.

Namely, who’s getting the big dough in this much-anticipated Web 2.0 gambit? Co-founder and CEO and Hoodie Commander Mark Zuckerberg fer sure, but who else?

Plus all the juicy financials from Facebook, along with stats in usage, growth and just how much the company sticks it to its gaming serf — oops, partner — Zynga and others for the privilege of being on its all-powerful platform.

Me? I pay nada, like other Facebook users, for being able to show off pictures of my vacations and decline friendships from PR people I like, but still … well, you know.

Here is another Facebook financial chart that will not knock your socks off unless you are an accountant:

I am now so comatose waiting for the show to begin that I briefly began a liveblog of my activities this morning.

It went like this:

4:45 am PT: Done with AOL Q4 earnings, which were meh, but better meh than expected. AOL, if you recall, used to be Facebook and now is, um, not.

Note to Zuckerberg: Be nice to people on your way up, since you’ll meet them again on the way down.

4:46 am PT: I check the SEC site and get zip. Click, click, clickety-click over to find out the latest on Demi Moore and her fake-pot debacle.

Who knew there was synthetic cannabis and it is called K2 or Spice? Not me! According to Wikipedia: “It seems likely that synthetic cannabis can precipitate psychosis and in some cases it is prolonged.”

I decide to blame Ashton Kutcher and then wonder if he is an investor in Facebook via BFF-to-errant-celebrities-who-like-tech Ron Conway, also a Facebook investor.

Note to self: Call Ashton! That dude plays village idiots all the time, but I am not fooled by Mr. Pretty Face.

4:47 am PT: I consider email bombing Yahoo’s Jerry Yang, who is probably not so busy right now, and asking him what he thinks about the Demi Moore crisis and also Facebook’s IPO.

Remember when Yahoo was king of Silicon Valley and Yang posed in that purple VW on the cover of that magazine? Better still, remember when Yahoo was going to buy Facebook for just over $1 billion and then borked it?

Just sayin’, Mark — so, keep it reals!

4:48 am PT: I consider going out for doughnuts — and not because of any real weed need. I just would like me some glazed and sprinkled sugar treats right about now. Then, I could post the pictures of them on my Facebook page.

Sweet.

But you-know-who would file right when I left the house on the munchie run. Click, click, clickety-click over to the SEC site and I come up peanuts.

Time to check in on the Kardashians.

You get the idea — so, Facebook IPO, take me away!

MORE ON THE FACEBOOK IPO:

• Facebook’s Ad Business Is a $3 Billion Mystery
• Viral Video: Farewell to the No-IPO Mark Zuckerberg
• Zuckerberg Is the Billion-Share Man: Who Owns What, Who Makes What in the Facebook IPO
• Zuckerberg Tells Investors, “We Don’t Build Services to Make Money”
• Mobile Highlighted as Key Risk Factor (and Opportunity) in Facebook Filing
• Stop All That Poking: Facebook Filing Temporarily Crashes SEC Web Site
• Zynga Accounted for 12 Percent of Facebook’s Revenue in 2011
• Facebook Has 845 Million Users
• On Its Eighth Birthday, Facebook Files to Raise $5 Billion in Massive IPO (Get Your S-1 Here!)
• Go the F**k Back to Sleep, Silicon Valley: Facebook IPO Likely to File Later Today at Earliest
• Dude, Where’s My Facebook IPO Filing? (Ashton’s on Hold!)
• The Quiet Man: Meet the Less-Known Face of the Facebook IPO, CFO David Ebersman
• Facebook Board Meeting Today for Final IPO Okays
• Facebook (Eye)PO: Tracking the Truth of the Biggest Deal of Web 2.0
• Viral Graphic: Visualizing the Facebook IPO
• Is Facebook IPO on Track for Late May?
• IPO Watch: Facebook Hiring Brunswick to Help With Comms for Expected Public Offering
• Complete Facebook coverage

Through many years of working together, first at eBay and then during the failed California governor’s race, Meg Whitman has relied heavily on Henry Gomez for communications advice.

Their close working relationship even earned them the mash-up nickname among those at eBay and elsewhere: Menry.

So when she got the CEO job at Hewlett-Packard, it was a bit of a surprise that Gomez — who has recently been living on the East Coast (see baseball cap above) — helped out a lot, but was not named to the top PR slot at the tech giant.

No longer, it seems, with Gomez being named EVP and Chief Communications Officer at HP today.

It’s a big job, given the hard work that Whitman faces reviving the iconic tech company, which has been beset by strategic and business challenges of all kinds, shapes and sizes in recent years.

While it might be seen as an adjunct to the business, the forward-facing parts of HP are in need of a powerful public relations initiative, which is presumably why Whitman wanted one of her most trusted and longtime staffers in the post.

According to HP, Gomez will become a member of the company’s executive council and report directly to Whitman.

Said HP in its press release, which you can also read below: “Gomez will be responsible for HP’s media and industry analyst relations, executive communications, employee communications, government affairs and global social innovation.”

As in, the voice of Menry is back!

Here’s the release:

HP Names Henry Gomez Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer

PALO ALTO, CA, Jan 10, 2012 – HP today announced that Henry Gomez will join the company as executive vice president and chief communications officer.

Gomez also will become a member of HP’s executive council, reporting to Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer.

In this newly expanded role, Gomez will be responsible for HP’s media and industry analyst relations, executive communications, employee communications, government affairs and global social innovation.

Gomez, 48, comes to HP with 26 years of communications experience. He spent most of the last decade working at eBay, where he served in a variety of roles including senior vice president for Corporate Communications and president of Skype. Gomez played a crucial role in building eBay’s brand during the critical years following the company’s initial public offering.

Prior to joining eBay, Gomez was vice president of Corporate Affairs at HBO in New York. He started his communications career at Hill and Knowlton and has worked on a wide array of public relations and marketing communications challenges in numerous industries.

Most recently, Gomez ran his own consulting business, providing communications counsel to clients such as H&R Block. He was on the leadership team of Whitman’s 2010 campaign for governor of California and has been involved in government and political affairs throughout his career. In 2011, Gomez was appointed to the board of BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. He is a graduate of Boston College.

“Henry is an excellent manager and communications executive,” said Whitman. “People around the world care deeply about HP, and I believe we have an important obligation to clearly explain where we’re headed and why. Henry will work closely with the entire leadership team to make certain customers, partners, employees, and shareholders fully understand our vision and strategy.”

About HP HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com .

It’s 2012 and it’s time for a brand news obsession for me besides the mishegas of Yahoo — and the winner is: Facebook’s upcoming IPO.

Thus, I shall endeavor to scoop all deets great and small about the social networking site’s moving on up to a deluxe public company in the Wall Street sky, which is expected in the spring of this year.

From bankers battling for purchase to who’s selling what to the delightful back and forth with regulators to Google’s lobbing the inevitable screaming meanies at its rival during Facebook’s quiet period, this is going to be a good one.

And CEO and Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg — and his hoodie — are back in the brightest of spotlights!

Speaking of the need for PR, one of the unsung but critical parts of any company’s public offering process is the hiring of an outside communications firm to handle the deluge of media, rumors and other breathless attention Facebook is sure to get.

It’s a highly specific job, given the reporters a company will be dealing with — in this case, sharp-elbowed Wall Street reporters — are usually different than the ones the Silicon Valley start-up has mostly dealt with (the geeks!).

And the expected winner of that thankless job is likely to go to the Brunswick Group, which describes itself as an “international corporate communications partnership that helps businesses and other organizations address critical communications challenges.”

In other words: Will be putting out the endless wildfires sure to rage around tech’s hottest IPO since Google.

Brunswick is among a small group of high-powered strategic communications firms that compete for such high-profile IPO jobs, as well as mergers and acquisitions and other corporate battling.

Others include Sard Verbinnen & Co. (it has worked for Groupon board and Alibaba Group); Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher (it has toiled for Hewlett-Packard) and Kekst and Company (now cat-wrangling the Yahoo drama).

It’s probably not a surprise that Brunswick won the deal, since it has worked with Facebook in the past, including on its controversial private offering with Goldman Sachs a year ago.

No surprise, everyone declined comment.

Thus, let the Hunger, oops, PR games begin!

As I reported late last night, Yahoo said it had named PayPal President Scott Thompson as its new CEO. The exec is currently in charge of the large eBay online payments unit.

He’ll start next week, but there are staff conference calls today and also an all-hands meeting on Yahoo’s main Silicon Valley campus (meet at URLs, troops!) tomorrow.

Yahoo shares are down almost three percent on the news so far, as Wall Street has been hoping for a big sale of some sort and not another turnaround.

Yahoo will be holding a 7 am PT press conference about the move and presumably to swan around Thompson.

(Welcome, Scott! I hope you were informed — please do not listen to what co-founder Jerry Yang says on this important issue — that you are supposed to send all internal memos to me! Also, as one of my Twitter followers, Mike Dudas of Google just tweeted: “If Thompson leads companies as well as he grows a moustache, Yahoo made a great CEO choice!!” I concur.)

A Yahoo PR person confirmed the hire very cordially in a phone call early this morning and the Internet giant also put out a press release.

So did I, of a sort, last night. Given I am too tired to rewrite myself, here is what I had reported:

The company fired its last CEO, Carol Bartz, in September, and Yahoo has been run by the board and also by interim CEO Tim Morse, who had previously been its CFO.

After Bartz’s ouster, Yahoo said it was looking at a range of strategic options, including the possible sale of all or part of the company.

That was the focus at first, although Yahoo had simultaneously hired Heidrick & Struggles to look for a new CEO.

The company attracted two partial investment bids from private equity firms, Silver Lake and TPG Capital, but shareholders were unhappy with the low prices of these so-called PIPE — Private Investment in Public Equity — arrangements.

Yahoo then moved to try to strike a tax-advantaged deal with its long disgruntled Asian partners, China’s Alibaba Group and Japan’s SoftBank, to sell back parts of the large stakes it has long owned in Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan.

Those complex negotiations are still ongoing and look promising, which could yield Yahoo billions of dollars in capital to be given to investors, for stock buybacks or to invest in new initiatives.

Since then, the board — long considered one of the more cloddish in tech — has turned its attention to hiring a new CEO, in the hopes of trying once again to revive its flagging fortunes.

Thus, it began looking to hire someone with deep tech experience at a large public consumer Internet company in Silicon Valley.

That narrowed the field, with Yahoo looking at a range of choices with expertise in advertising, technology platforms and more.

There is a lot of that on the deep bench that eBay CEO John Donahoe has assembled at the online commerce giant, including Thompson.

Plus, he is a genuine Internet geek.

According to his eBay bio, Thompson became president of PayPal in early 2008, after serving as its CTO in charge of information technology, product development and architecture.

Before eBay, he worked at Inovant, a subsidiary of Visa formed to oversee global technology for the organization. He was also CIO of Barclays Global Investors and has worked at Coopers and Lybrand on information technology.

And here’s a tasty new wrinkle: Thompson recently “liked” Yahoo on his Facebook page, along with the decidedly more interesting Kickstarter and Splunk.

Again, Scott, thanks for the Facebook tip — I knew the social networking site could come in handy!

(Also, here is an interview I did with him post-announcement.)

And here is Yahoo’s official press release where Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock says nice stuff about Thompson:

YHOO_News_2012_1_4_General

According to sources close to the situation, Apple is planning an important — but not large-scale — event to be held in New York at the end of this month that will focus on a media-related announcement.

Per the usual caveat, the tech giant is well known for moving around their public show-and-tells, so this could certainly change at any moment.

But, for sure, several sources underscored that the event is not related to an upcoming version of the iPad 3, the next iteration of the popular tablet device that many expect to be available in 2012.

Also unlikely, the rollout of Apple’s large-scale rethinking of the interactive television initiative that it has been working on. While the company is expected to launch a new Apple TV product later in 2012, such an event would almost certainly be held in the heart of the industry in Hollywood or at least in Silicon Valley.

That leaves some kind of advertising or even publishing announcement, which might be the case, since Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue is reportedly involved.

Cue is in charge of a large swath of Apple’s media units, including the iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore, as well as iAd and its iCloud services.

It’s well known in the ad industry that Apple has been searching for a new head of its mobile advertising unit, since Andy Miller left last summer.

But such an appointment has not been made as yet, said sources.

The last time Cue was in New York for an event, by the way, was nearly a year ago, when Apple helped launch News Corp.’s online magazine, The Daily.

And Apple also recently opened a splashy new retail store in Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, and has been refurbishing its flagship glass cube on Fifth Avenue, too.

The holiday-having Apple PR team declined comment, but wished me a “happy, happy new year.”

The move to beef up communications expertise at the prominent Silicon Valley venture firm continues: Sequoia Capital has hired Andrew Kovacs, a well-regarded senior manager from Google, for a new job to help its portfolio companies with public relations and other related issues, sources said.

Google’s top flack Rachel Whetstone told staff about the move this past week, sources said, which will take place in mid-January.

Kovacs (pictured here, looking very GQ), who has been at the search giant for five years, has most recently headed PR for its apps unit.

His appointment comes after competing firms, including Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, bolstered talent to the comms areas of their firms, in order to better service the companies they invest in.

This is especially important to early-stage start-ups and their often young entrepreneurs, who usually have little experience with the media or with marketing. But such expertise is increasingly important in the crowded and ever-noisier tech sector, as companies try to rise above the fray.

Sequoia already has a longtime marketing partner, Mark Dempster, to whom Kovacs will be reporting, serving the firm’s companies in the U.S. and Israel. Kovacs will not be working on PR for Sequoia itself.

Some of Sequoia’s better-known start-ups include Dropbox, Tumblr and Eventbrite.

All terrible ideas. This is how you do it: You commission a statue of the late Steve Jobs, and you dedicate it during the oh-so-slow week before Christmas.

Boom. So here you go, Graphisoft. I have no idea what you do — the fact that you “ignited the BIM revolution with ArchiCAD®, the industry first BIM software for architects” means nothing to me. I also have no idea if Steve Jobs really did support your company back in 1984 with cash and computers, as your press release states.

But you did supply me with a picture of the statue in front of your Budapest headquarters, and I’m happy to republish it here. And I won’t complain about the quality or the dimensions of the shot. Thanks!

This is a commercial, for sure, and it came from a PR pitch that begins with the words “shrieking monkeys.” But this video for a photo-books product made me laugh out loud.

And it was not only the shrieking monkey part. I also liked the nail-gun incident and the flaming robo-vac.

Enjoy:

Memo to Flipboard, as well as Pulse, CNN’s Zite and AOL’s Editions: You might want to make some room in the already-crowded news and social reader space, because you’re about to get some bigfoot company.

Next Wednesday, according to sources close to the situation, Yahoo will finally officially unveil its offering, called Livestand.

And perhaps as early as next week or in the weeks soon after, Google will also weigh in with its version of the genre — code-named Propeller — which also might be the product’s name. Another moniker under strong consideration: Currents.

As I have previously reported, Google Propeller is an HTML5 reader for the Apple iPad and Android — essentially a souped-up version of similar apps such as Flipboard, AOL’s Editions, Zite (which was just bought by Time Warner’s CNN) and Pulse.

All these apps are part of the drastically changing habits of media consumers, helping users better navigate numerous social and media feeds — such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as news sites and more — using handsome interfaces and touch technologies on tablet devices.

Flipboard, the most prominent and elegant of these offerings, is now available only on the Apple iPad.

Flipboard’s traction among elite users, along with its high-level design ethos and strong reviews, is why Google tried to buy the well-funded company last year, sources said.

But Flipboard — which is backed by some of tech’s biggest venture players, who have invested more than $60 million at a $200 million valuation — declined the kind offer.

At the time, sources said, Google told Flipboard execs that if it did not buy the start-up, it planned to do a version of its own.

Hence, after I heard about the product earlier this year, I dubbed it the Flipinator.

According to sources, Propeller will launch with a plethora of media partners, as well as integration into the Google+ social network. The aim of the search giant is to offer media companies easy tools for publishing content on these devices, as well as a better path to monetization.

That is essentially the same plan at Yahoo, which has been working on Livestand with hopes of it being a product that will woo publishers into tight collaboration with the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Livestand was announced by Yahoo’s now-fired CEO Carol Bartz in February, at a speech at the World Mobile Congress in Spain.

At the time, Bartz demoed a magazinelike platform that would allow publishers to put up content easily and give users the ability to personalize their selections based on search history and interests.

Bartz called it “content in context.” (You can see the demo video below.)

But while Bartz promised the product within three months, development has been slowed by its complex technologies, bugs and the need to sign on publishers.

Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving is pushing the product hard as a way for the company to reinvigorate its media products.

It’s not clear how many publishers Yahoo will have at launch, and neither are the distribution plans, beyond flacking it from the Web site and being present in app stores.

Google, on the other hand, has its Android platform to push out Propeller, although it all must work as well on Apple’s iPad, which is the dominant tablet on the market.

But just because both Yahoo and Google are big companies is by no means a guarantee of success — think Yahoo 360 or Google Wave or Buzz — and their lateness might be a hindrance.

And, in fact, other news reader apps are much further along. The leader, Flipboard, has already had four million downloads and 50 partnerships with leading publishers.

It also has started to introduce rich advertising products and, perhaps most importantly, has tight social integration with Twitter and Facebook.

There will be social elements on both Yahoo’s Livestand and Google’s Propeller. But news reading will be stressed more, making them more like Pulse, a tiny but highly innovative start-up.

Each of the existing apps will presumably compete by adding on more features. Pulse recently added cross-platform, cross-device syncing, while Flipboard is close to unveiling an iPhone version it has said it was working on.

Yahoo and Google PR declined comment.

Here is the Livestand demo video from February:

Jared Grusd, AOL’s SVP of business development and chief of strategy, is leaving the New York Internet giant to work at Spotify, according to sources close to the situation.

At AOL, according to his bio, Grusd “oversees the organization responsible for all domestic and international strategic partnerships and commercial alliances for AOL and each of its operating units. He is also responsible for identifying and evaluating new corporate strategies and opportunities for the company.”

The marathon fiend and former Google exec — who held top legal-deal jobs there — also serves on AOL’s Executive Management Team.

It is not clear what the well-respected Grusd will be doing at the online music service, which has been expanding its executive ranks as it has moved aggressively into the U.S. market. But sources said it was a high-level position in New York.

Spotify recently hired former Clear Channel exec Gerrit Meier as GM of distribution and partnerships, reporting to U.S. head Ken Parks.

Spotify also just scooped up former AOL sales head Jeff Levick — another Google alum — as its chief advertising officer.

The departure of Grusd further thins out the exec ranks at AOL, which is still mired in a turnaround under the leadership of CEO Tim Armstrong (yes, he too is a former Googler!).

I lobbed a query into AOL PR for comment, and am awaiting news of my news.

As happened last week to its centralized marketing division, Yahoo has broken up its Customer Advocacy organization, with its staff distributed to the various regions and the product unit of the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Customer Advocacy has been led by EVP Jeff Russakow, whose fate is now similarly unclear as it is for CMO Elisa Steele, whose division was diced up to the regions last week.

Both execs — who were hired by fired CEO Carol Bartz — plan to remain at the company until at least January, sources said.

Russakow, according to his Yahoo bio, has had “global responsibility for all of Yahoo!’s customer support functions, including audience, small business, ad operations, and search network quality.” He came to Yahoo from previous jobs at Symantec and Adobe.

Interim CEO Tim Morse sent a memo to employees about the change, noting Russakow is looking for his next opportunity, using much the same language as Steele used in her internal email.

The moves are interesting, given Yahoo’s current effort to find a new strategy, which includes a possible sale of all or parts of the company. But there is also a strong sentiment within the company to reorganize around strengthening its advertising platform and products.

I have a call into Yahoo PR for comment (but let’s assume I am accurate about this, shall we?).

More, obviously, to come.

Dag Kittlaus — the co-founder and CEO of the company that created the Siri voice control feature, which Apple launched to much acclaim recently — has left the company, according to sources.

There were several reasons for the departure, which was amicable and has been planned for a while, sources said. They included Kittlaus’s family being in Chicago, a desire to take time off and an interest in brainstorming new entrepreneurial ideas.

Kittlaus has led the speech recognition efforts for Apple since Apple bought Siri in April of 2010. He had been Siri’s CEO since 2007. Before that, the Norwegian-born Kittlaus was an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Stanford Research Institute and had also worked at Motorola.

Kittlaus apparently left just after the launch of the iPhone 4S, in which Siri’s speech recognition technology was the highlight, but sources said other key execs from Siri are expected to remain at Apple.

I have queried Apple PR and am waiting for a response.

Here is a video of Kittlaus demoing Siri at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in 2009:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111023/exclusive-siri-co-founder-kittlaus-departs-from-apple/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111003/viral-video-liz-gannes-may-or-may-not-see-hubski-now/ http://allthingsd.com/20111003/viral-video-liz-gannes-may-or-may-not-see-hubski-now/#comments Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:34:48 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=127665

At AllThingsD, we love Liz Gannes too, but not quite as endearing-creepily as Steve Clausnitzer of Hubski, a “thoughtful” social aggregation site, does.

Like a lot of start-ups, he wants our fantastic social reporter to check out his site and possibly write about it. But, unlike others, to entice Liz Clausnitzer has penned a little ditty that he posted on YouTube.

You need to watch it to experience the full oddball effort (although we all agree on her very lovely smile)– but mission accomplished on us noticing you, Steve!

I can make no promises that Liz will cover Hubski, of course.

But she is not alone in the video PR pleas — embedded below is one from June to our commerce reporter Tricia Duryee about a new online game from Sir Mix-A-Lot (who seems to do this sort of thing a lot):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111003/viral-video-liz-gannes-may-or-may-not-see-hubski-now/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110923/groupon-loses-new-coo-whos-going-back-to-google/ http://allthingsd.com/20110923/groupon-loses-new-coo-whos-going-back-to-google/#comments Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:54:19 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=124396

In a blog it just posted, Groupon said its recently hired COO, Margo Georgiadis, “has decided to return to Google (her former employer) in a new role as President, Americas.”

She was only hired in April, just months before the company filed to go public. Georgiadis was previously VP of Global Sales at Google.

(Interesting way to get a better title at the search giant, Margo!)

Georgiadis was in charge of the company’s global sales, marketing and operations at the Chicago-based social buying service.

Sources said that the hiring did not gel on either side.

It might not be Georgiadis’ fault. She replaced Rob Solomon, who was in his job for one year.

And here’s another: PR hire Brad Williams, a longtime Silicon Valley communications exec, who was there and then gone in what felt like 23 minutes.

It seems Groupon does not like Silicon Valley types or, perhaps, vice versa.

Since its IPO filing, in fact, it feels as if it has been a non-stop circus disaster at Groupon.

That has included immense controversy about its sketchy accounting, huge slugs of venture funding going to its founders and a lot of worries about its growth.

Today, in a Friday late afternoon dumping of bad news in hopes that no one notices (I do), Groupon also amended its S-1 public offering filing once again to change revenue metrics and also add a controversial internal letter that CEO and co-founder Andrew Mason sent to employees to counter its many and growing critics.

There appear to be many more shoes dropping soon, said sources, so stay tuned.

Until then, here’s the whole and very terse — for Mason — post:

Update on the Groupon Team

As a fast-growing company, we’ve done a lot of hiring this year, including on our senior executive team. Since the beginning of this year, we’ve made a total of 8 additions — that’s 57% of the total executive team. It would have been great if I could say that we batted 1,000%, but that’s rarely the case; after five months at Groupon, Margo Georgiadis, our COO, has decided to return to Google (her former employer) in a new role as President, Americas.

We’ve built a fantastic team that has proven itself highly capable, so this change won’t have an impact on operations. In fact, we are using it as an opportunity to reorganize in a way that reflects our evolving strategic priorities. Sales, Channels, International, and Marketing will now report directly to me.

Here’s a note from Margo: “Groupon is a great company and I feel privileged to have worked there even for a short time. It was a hard decision to leave as the company is on a terrific path. I have complete confidence in the team’s ability to realize its mission.” We wish her well.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110923/groupon-loses-new-coo-whos-going-back-to-google/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110907/exclusive-silicon-valley-entrepreneur-blake-krikorian-joins-amazon-board/ http://allthingsd.com/20110907/exclusive-silicon-valley-entrepreneur-blake-krikorian-joins-amazon-board/#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2011 04:47:48 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=118330

Well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur Blake Krikorian has joined the board of Amazon, according to several sources close to the situation.

Krikorian — who is considered one of tech’s most savvy execs with regard to video and media distribution — co-founded Sling Media, the maker of the innovative video device Slingbox, in 2004.

(He demoed it at the second D: All Things Digital conference in 2004.)

It was sold in 2007 to EchoStar Communications for $380 million. After a short stint there, Krikorian left and has since been working on a variety of projects and making various investments.

Those include some promising start-ups, such as Lytro, Kno, Clipboard, Chirply and Tasty Labs. Another company he invested in, Clicker, was sold to CBS earlier this year.

He has also been a sought-after exec — sources said he had offers over the last year from Google and also Zynga.

Amazon certainly could use a director such as Krikorian as it seeks to enter the media distribution space more aggressively. It is about to launch a Kindle tablet, for example, and also is a major bidder for the Hulu premium video service.

It has been rumored that Amazon will soon offer an interactive television device, too.

Krikorian certainly has much experience in the arena. One of his first jobs was at the fabled General Magic, which pioneered the creation of one of the first interactive mobile products before the Internet.

He also started a mobile computing unit for Philips Electronics, as well as working in adjacent arenas at other firms.

The University of California at Los Angeles graduate has a degree in mechanical engineering.

Other directors on Amazon’s eight-person board, besides CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, include Kleiner Perkins’s Bing Gordon and Hewlett-Packard’s Jon Rubinstein.

Krikorian, who declined to comment, will be its ninth member.

I also have an email in to Amazon PR, and will update if I get a response.

UPDATE: No need, as here is the 8-K regulatory filing by Amazon announcing the appointment:

AMZN-20110908-8K-20110908

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110907/exclusive-silicon-valley-entrepreneur-blake-krikorian-joins-amazon-board/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110803/microsoft-pr-ninja-strikes-back-at-google-patent-whine-with-email-jujitsu/ http://allthingsd.com/20110803/microsoft-pr-ninja-strikes-back-at-google-patent-whine-with-email-jujitsu/#comments Thu, 04 Aug 2011 04:38:59 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=106190

After Google’s legal head David Drummond let forth with a blog post about how Microsoft and Apple had formed an evil patent cabal against the search giant, the software giant’s PR head Frank Shaw was not having any of it.

In his post, Drummond had claimed the pair ganged up on Google and had not offered to partner over key former Novell patents, in an attempt to stop the growth of its Android mobile operating system.

Except not, according to an email that Shaw posted on Twitter from Google’s legal counsel Kent Walker to Microsoft’s legal head Brad Smith.

Tweeted Shaw: “Free advice for David Drummond – next time check with Kent Walker before you blog. :)”

It was followed by the image of the email, in which Walker seemed to turn down an offer of a partnership over the patents. “After talking with people here, it sounds as though for various reasons a joint bid wouldn’t be advisable for us on this one.”

Smith also piled on on Twitter, noting: “Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no.”

Wax on, Google!

Here’s the image of the email:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110803/microsoft-pr-ninja-strikes-back-at-google-patent-whine-with-email-jujitsu/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110711/yahoo-loses-global-search-business-head-chi-chao-chang/ http://allthingsd.com/20110711/yahoo-loses-global-search-business-head-chi-chao-chang/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:31:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=96349

In the ongoing talent drain at Yahoo, longtime Yahoo search veteran Chi-Chao Chang (pictured right) is the next to swirl away from the Internet giant.

Chang was VP and GM of the global search business at Yahoo and has been at the company since 1999.

More importantly, he has been a key exec in Yahoo’s troubled search alliance with Microsoft, so there’s another plus for Yahoo (and by plus, I mean minus). It is not clear where Chang is headed.

On his LinkedIn profile, Chang described his job thus:

“I am responsible for Yahoo’s global search operations and marketplace, and am the executive manager of the Microsoft Search Alliance for the US/CA marketplace. My team runs in-region operations and marketplace analysis for Americas, Asia and Europe.”

But that’s not all today!

Also departing Yahoo is a top PR exec, May Petry (pictured left). She has held a number of different communications jobs at Yahoo over the years, including for its Connected Life unit, corporate and, most recently, for its Americas unit. Petry, who has previously worked at BEA Systems and Sun Microsystems, will head to Hewlett-Packard to run PR for its webOs unit.

(Note to May: I am just as interested in that action-packed business, so get ready!)

I contacted Yahoo for a comment (but let’s just assume I am right, because I am).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110711/yahoo-loses-global-search-business-head-chi-chao-chang/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110628/exclusive-skype-employees-were-briefed-in-plain-english-the-internal-equity-incentive-plan-deck/ http://allthingsd.com/20110628/exclusive-skype-employees-were-briefed-in-plain-english-the-internal-equity-incentive-plan-deck/#comments Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:14:21 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=92265 I have largely stayed away from opining about the he-said-he-said over what or what not Skype employees were told about the treatment of their stock options.

Some employees are alleging they were duped via complicated legalese and double-talk in employment contracts about how their shares would be handled upon termination or voluntary departure from the Internet telephony giant.

That matters, since Skype was recently sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion, well above previous valuations. Thus, those who were, as a Skype PR person said, not in it to win it, um, lost.

Dramatic stuff, to be sure. But, even with all the fervor around the employment contract issue, the handwringing about what it means for compensation issues in Silicon Valley and a whole big dose of how private equity companies (in this case, a firm that had bought Skype called Silver Lake) are evil, it’s struck me as little more than an insider read-the-legally-obtuse-contract dispute.

And, although I love Reuters’ Felix Salmon’s epic tsk-tsking posts, that’s why I like to see real documents as proof of what people knew and when.

Apparently, a lot and rather clearly from this PowerPoint that was given to employees of Skype as of December 2009 as part of its changing ownership, after Silver Lake and other investors bought it from eBay.

While it’s not proof of what employees got it — typically, it is standard HR policy to hand this stuff out to everyone — and who read it (no accounting for slaggards!), it is pretty clear on what happens upon leaving Skype, either by a firing or quitting.

On the eighth slide, as you can see above, it says, in part:

“Good Leaver”: someone who gets fired without “Cause”

* Gets the fair-market value of their currently vested options

“Bad Leaver”: someone who resigns, or is fired for “Cause”

* Skype buys back their options at the lower of fair-market value or strike price

* This provision lapses post-IPO

It seems pretty buyer-beware clear, but check it out for yourself:

Skype – Employee Presentation

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110628/exclusive-skype-employees-were-briefed-in-plain-english-the-internal-equity-incentive-plan-deck/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110613/is-there-a-myspace-mafia-too-because-leaving-it-seems-to-have-paid-off-for-many-ex-execs/ http://allthingsd.com/20110613/is-there-a-myspace-mafia-too-because-leaving-it-seems-to-have-paid-off-for-many-ex-execs/#comments Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:28:02 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=85451

When the selling of Myspace winds down in the next week or so, it’ll probably attract a spate of comments about what a failure the whole social networking enterprise turned out to be.

And — especially when you recall what a Web phenom the social networking site was before it got blown out of the water by Facebook — it was.

That is, unless you think of the mob of former execs who have worked at the company over time, many of whom have moved on to some more golden opportunities after leaving the News Corp.-owned property.

That includes, most recently and notably, former sales head Michael Barrett, who is about to score big as CEO of AdMeld, which is reportedly in the process of selling to Google for $400 million.

Also a big winner: Former Myspace CEO Owen Van Natta, who was fired from that job in one of its many putsches and who quickly rebounded to a top job at online gaming powerhouse Zynga.

So, while it is one of the more overused memes of Silicon Valley, the “mafia” analogy — which has been applied to fertile entrepreneurial breeding grounds such as PayPal, before its acquisition by eBay — is useful when thinking about Myspace.

It is also a good thing to keep in mind about any tech company that goes off the rails: There might still be a silver lining, even if the start-up never sees the light of day again.

As proof, herein is a list I created after pinging a bunch of former Myspace folks:

Jason Oberfest: Former SVP of business development. Now, VP Ngmoco, which was sold to Japanese gaming giant DeNA for $400 million last year.

Dmitry Shapiro: Former CTO, Myspace Music. Now, at Facebook competitor Altly.

Adam Bain: While at Fox Interactive Media, he ran the ad platform for Myspace. Now, head of sales at Twitter.

Jeff Berman: Former president of sales and marketing. Now, GM of the NFL’s digital media unit.

Jason Hirschhorn: Former co-president and chief product officer. Now, on MGM board, angel investor, and there are rumors of him working on a curation start-up.

Amit Kapur: Former COO. Now, CEO, Gravity, an information filtering service start-up.

Chris DeWolfe: Co-founder and former CEO. Now, CEO, MindJolt, an online gaming roll-up.

Ross Levinsohn: Former president of FIM, he was integral to buying Myspace. Now, EVP of Americas unit, Yahoo.

Mike Lang: Former News Corp. strategy exec also involved in Myspace purchase. Now, CEO, Miramax.

Aber Whitcomb: Former CTO. Now CTO, MindJolt.

Jim Heckman: Former chief strategy officer of FIM. Now, CEO of 5to1, recently sold to Yahoo for $25 million.

Dani Dudeck: Former communications head. Now, PR head at Zynga.

Travis Katz: SVP of international. Now, CEO of Gogobot, a social travel start-up.

Richard Rosenblatt: Former CEO of Intermix Media and Chairman of Myspace, he sold it to News Corp. Now, CEO of Demand Media.

Angela Courtin: Former SVP of marketing. Now, EVP at Aegis Media.

These folks should be on the call list of whoever ends up buying Myspace. Last week, I wrote that an investor group, including Activision head Bobby Kotick, is now in the lead for the deal.

As an update, according to sources, Kotick has gotten clearance from Activision’s major shareholder Vivendi to do the Myspace transaction as a passive personal investment.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110613/is-there-a-myspace-mafia-too-because-leaving-it-seems-to-have-paid-off-for-many-ex-execs/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110428/godspeed-on-that-investing-thing-yertle-but-i-still-have-some-questions-for-your-boss-arianna/ http://allthingsd.com/20110428/godspeed-on-that-investing-thing-yertle-but-i-still-have-some-questions-for-your-boss-arianna/#comments Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:19:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=43217

Would it surprise you to know that BoomTown doesn’t really care anymore if TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington sidelines as a blogger while he makes investments in tech companies his tech news site covers?

In a post yesterday, titled “An Update to My Investment Policy,” Arrington made his seemingly cogent arguments that plenty of disclosure made it all “fine,” took one of his typical look-at-me swipes at anyone who dared to question this logic (apparently, we’re crappy “direct” competitors, so we haters have no standing to comment!) and presumably went on his merry investing way.

While I was first irked–because it was an appalling show to many of us cranky standards-insisting whiners–I soon realized Arrington had made a good argument about who he is and, frankly, who he has always been.

In other words, it’s a kind of there-he-goes-again thing, vaguely icky but hardly surprising and completely genuine.

Meanwhile, his new boss, AOL content head Arianna Huffington, pointed me to his post in an email.

When I asked her for an on-the-record comment, as usual, she politely and quickly complied, writing in support of Arrington:

“TechCrunch is committed to transparency. Michael has written about the guidelines he follows–that he rarely writes about companies in which he is an investor, and that, when he does, he clearly discloses this information. The same rules apply when TechCrunch’s writers cover these companies.”

Hold the phone.

Because while I kind of understand where Arrington is coming from, what I don’t understand is how this kind of convenient and on-the-fly rule-making can govern a much larger company whose strongly and repeatedly stated goal by Huffington herself is to create quality journalism.

Since I believed Huffington–whom I like very much as an Internet figure and as a friend–I was confused at what the rules for the whole of AOL content were now.

That’s why I sent her a long new list of questions to answer, which are:

1) What are, if any, the ethical guidelines about making investments for the editorial staff at HuffPo media group properties?

2) Since Arrington now seems to have permission to do so from you, can other editors at AOL properties do the same–that is, make very adjacent investments to what their site covers, as long as they disclose it? For example, can an editor who runs the entertainment site make investments in entertainment companies she/he has coverage responsibility over? (By the way, did you give him permission to make these investments? Did he ask?)

3) Is there anyone who polices what is fair coverage of competitors–i.e. companies competing with companies your editors invest in?

4) If an editor makes investments in a company and someone who works for them writes about that company, does that editor have to recuse himself from the story? Is that even possible?

5) Since you just fired someone for what you called an ethical breach–asking freelancers to work for free and also seemingly defending an attempt to curry favor with an advertiser/client–why is this not an ethical breach?

I had a lot more questions, still unanswered by Huffington, but you can see where this is going.

Simply put, does AOL, which is touting itself as a 21st-century media company, need to have 21st-century rules of the road? Or perhaps not so much?

UPDATE: Now, it is a real clown circus at AOL, with the company declaring that editorial personnel cannot make investments, except Arrington!

“As a rule, in order to avoid conflicts of interests, AOL Huffington Post Media Group editors, writers, and reporters may not have a financial interest in a company or industry that they regularly cover,” AOL said in a statement to Business Insider today, even though I nicely asked for a comment on the issue yesterday. “Arrington operates from a unique position.”

And how! Where do I get such a faboo ethical hall pass from Content Principal Huffington?

I suppose I should go all slouching-towards-Bethlehem here, and wring my hands over this unusual ruling, but what’s the use?

As you might have read: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

How did this all start, especially since I feel like this ridiculous tempest in a Silicon Valley teapot over Arrington’s investment-making might actually be my fault a little bit?

Here’s why:

On Tuesday night around 10 pm (just when I start getting revved up), I wrote a testy email to Arrington’s bosses at AOL–Huffington and CEO Tim Armstrong–as well as the Internet portal’s sharp PR head, asking for a response about what seemed to me to be a glaring conflict of interest at TechCrunch related to new investment activity by Arrington and the site’s coverage of those particular companies he had invested in.

It was all disclosed, of course, but it still felt, as I said, icky.

And, given the recent and loudly stated goal of promoting quality journalism by Huffington–including the recent dismissal of AOL’s Moviefone site editor over what the company considered ethical lapses–it seemed pertinent to ask.

Mostly because I don’t think they actually knew much–if at all–about Arrington’s increasing investing action. Armstrong said as much in an email to me, and Huffington assured me they were going to check it out tout de suite.

But rather than the answer I was waiting on, up popped Arrington’s missive yesterday, which I assume came after his bosses asked for some info on this.

In it, he explained his controversial decision to go back into investing again, in what is clearly a more significant manner.

It was a practice he had abandoned years earlier, apparently after being pecked by detractors for it.

But, dear readers, no more! Let Arrington be Arrington!

And that seems to be a talented blogger with a flare for the dramatic, with a clearly sharply-honed news nose and sassy writing skills, but a scribe who much prefers to be a playah than just an observer and chronicler of that play.

And, after more reflection, I thought: Well, maybe it is a better idea for Arrington to go play with all the boys in Silicon Valley, which would probably be more fun than taking flack for lack of traditional journalistic ethics he never ascribed to in the first place.

I once jokingly nicknamed Arrington Yertle the Turtle after the Dr. Seuss book on one dubious king of one small pond in Sala-Ma-Sond, after he went particularly nuts on the topic of news-embargo breaking.

That diatribe on how he saw news rules–which is to say, there aren’t any that bind him–was vintage Arrington, too. And, after reading his latest post, I suddenly realized that it’s pointless to give a turtle a hard time for not being a fish.

But Huffington is another story. She has put herself in word and deed right into the center of the debate on where news is going on the Web, especially after AOL paid $315 million for her Huffington Post news and opinion site.

Huffington has certainly taken a lot of hits over the years as the HuffPo has grown, some deserved, but she has clearly led an impressive effort.

In fact, I think the cute-kitten and celebrity-loving angle played up by her detractors to dismiss her is silliness, because she and the Huffington Post are clearly more than that and are obviously having a major impact on the future direction of content in the digital age.

But that power she has sought also gives her a responsibility to say exactly what that means on a real and granular and consistent level, beyond the platitudes of wanting to make great journalism that she declares all the time now.

In other words, very specifically: What does Arianna Huffington stand for in regards to journalism? What are her rules and standards and codes? And, perhaps more importantly, what does she not stand up for?

These are questions I hope Huffington–who is really good at smacking back at criticism, too (See: the New York Times’ Bill Keller)–will address in one of her patented blog-xplosions and many times over, too.

Until then, here’s a link to my very long and very detailed ethics disclosure on All Things Digital, which is exactly how our little site thinks it should be in the digital age.

In short, besides signing the Dow Jones Code of Conduct–standard at The Wall Street Journal and other DJ publications–all our editorial staff is required to also pen their own in-plain-English personal and detailed account of disclosures that are pertinent to their job.

(You can read an extensive interview with me on the subject, in fact, which was posted here by Two Bananas Marketing, this week.)

My ATD disclosure is probably the most detailed of all of them, since I gay-married Megan Smith a dozen years ago. She later became a VP at Google, which I cover from time to time, especially related to other companies I focus on more, such as Yahoo.

Most of the time, if you care to read my posts on Google, I am probably tougher and snarkier than not, mostly because I know the search giant from its earliest days.

And, even though I once wrote extensively for the Journal about Google since its founding and before Megan arrived there, I thought it wise to lay it all out in detailed detail.

(By the way, if you want to try to tweak me by asking what News Corp.-owned Fox News’ ethics rules are, I don’t know, as ATD belongs to Dow Jones, which has had them forever. I will say, though, that Roger Ailes often freaks me out.)

In any case, as Arrington preaches, the more disclosure the better, and perhaps I should say even more so here, given the current swirl, by noting explicitly that I garner exactly no financial benefits from my relationship with Megan.

That might seem odd, because she certainly earns more. But I don’t know how much nor do I ask, since we have separate bank accounts and she always pays up–well, almost always–when half the bills are due. While it sounds painfully un-romantic, we only spend overall what each of us can afford equally in an exact 50-50 split.

In addition, I also legally signed away all rights to inheritance–although I had no such marriage rights in the first place, being gay–of Megan’s assets, which are in a trust for her relatives and our sons (for when they are too old to have any fun).

More to the point, I believe this makes me the only person to marry an exec at a hot Silicon Valley company with no prospect of any gold-digging.

Thus, I clearly would make the worst investor ever–not that I ever invest in tech or plan to while I am a reporter covering the sector.

Thank god, I suppose, that Michael Arrington is there to take up the slack.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110428/godspeed-on-that-investing-thing-yertle-but-i-still-have-some-questions-for-your-boss-arianna/feed/ 37 http://allthingsd.com/20110413/overreactor-meltdown-rims-lazaridis-blows-again/ http://allthingsd.com/20110413/overreactor-meltdown-rims-lazaridis-blows-again/#comments Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:35:54 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=60361 Research in Motion co-CEO Mike Lazaridis picked a lousy time for his latest PR gaffe.

With a little over a week to go before the launch of the company’s new PlayBook tablet, Lazaridis indignantly broke off an interview with BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones after what appeared to be a reasonable question about RIM’s national security compliance issues in India and the United Arab Emirates.

“The interview is over,” a visibly irked Lazaridis said, gesturing at the camera. “It’s just not fair. This is a national security issue. Turn that off.”

An odd response to a question for which Lazaridis arguably should have been prepared and expecting. RIM’s long-running difficulties with Gulf States and others threatening to ban its BlackBerry messenger services over national security concerns aren’t exactly irrelevant to the company’s business. And even if they were, Lazaridis certainly could have parried questions about them quite easily.

And he should have.

Because this meltdown is just one more in a string of embarrassing public displays. There was, for instance, this Dangerfieldian rant to the New York Times last week:

“Why is it that people don’t appreciate our profits? Why is it that people don’t appreciate our growth? Why is it that people don’t appreciate the fact that we spent the last four years going global? Why is it that people don’t appreciate that we have 500 carriers in 170 countries with products in almost 30 languages? I don’t fully understand why there’s this negative sentiment, and I just don’t have the time to battle it. Because in the end, what I’ve learned is you’ve just got to prove it over and over and over.”

And, of course, there was his defensive, evasive and at times completely nonsensical interview at our D:Dive Into Mobile conference last December. Video of that below:

The most unfortunate aspect of all this: Up until December, Lazaridis had arguably been the more poised of RIM’s two CEOs, playing the straightman to Jim Balsillie’s babbling boss.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110413/overreactor-meltdown-rims-lazaridis-blows-again/feed/ 26 http://allthingsd.com/20110331/exclusive-global-marketing-vp-allison-johnson-leaving-apple/ http://allthingsd.com/20110331/exclusive-global-marketing-vp-allison-johnson-leaving-apple/#comments Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:00:45 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=59543

Allison Johnson, who has served as Apple’s vice president of worldwide marketing communications since 2005, is leaving the company, according to several sources.

The reason?

To co-found a new marketing and communications firm with another Silicon Valley communications luminary, Former Facebook PR exec Brandee Barker.

Sources said Johnson will begin work at the venture after negotiating her departure from Apple, which is likely to come sometime before the summer.

Beyond that, the details are slim. The new firm doesn’t yet have a name or a client list, although presumably answers site Quora and social buying service Groupon, two of Barker’s current clients, would sign on with the venture.

There’s no dearth of marketing and communications talent at Apple, but Johnson’s exit from the company is still notable.

She’s a seasoned and respected executive who came to Apple from Hewlett-Packard, where she managed public relations during the brutal proxy battle over HP’s acquisition of Compaq Computer. A former co-worker there once described her as “prime minister” of HP.

At Apple, Johnson has managed global advertising for some of the company’s most revolutionary products and the iconic ads for them. Those ads have been created by TBWA\Chiat\Day, which plays a powerful role at Apple.

Of course, this key part of Apple’s business is watched over closely by CEO Steve Jobs, to whom Johnson has reported directly.

In any case, Johnson’s departure is a loss for Apple, but quite a get for Barker and her new venture and a boon for Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs.

In typical form, Barker said “no comment” when asked about the news. And an Apple spokeswoman declined to comment as well.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110331/exclusive-global-marketing-vp-allison-johnson-leaving-apple/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20110330/awkward-as-microsoft-marketing-event-opens-its-longtime-marketing-head-announces-retirement/ http://allthingsd.com/20110330/awkward-as-microsoft-marketing-event-opens-its-longtime-marketing-head-announces-retirement/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:43:56 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=42153

Timing is everything and, sometimes, very awkward.

Today at its Redmond, Wash., campus, Microsoft is hosting a splashy online “marketing leadership summit” titled “Imagine 2011″–a gathering of top marketing execs from across the globe, most of whom are advertising clients of its online division.

Also today: Its longtime head of global marketing, Mich Mathews, announced her departure–to the surprise of many Microsoft execs here, in fact–via a report in Ad Age.

In the article, she said she had told execs at Microsoft just last night.

Mathews, who is probably Microsoft’s top woman executive, has been at the software giant for a dog’s age–22 years. (BoomTown met the sharp-witted and often pointed exec in the early 1990s, when she was in charge of the PR operations for the company.)

As SVP of Microsoft’s Central Marketing Group, Mathews oversees a $1 billion budget for Microsoft products such as Windows, Xbox , Window Phone 7 and its Bing search service.

While Microsoft will be conducting a global search for a replacement, several sources said the most obvious internal candidate for the job is Yusuf Mehdi, who is SVP for its Online Audience Business.

He leads global product management, strategic partnerships, business development and U.S. marketing execution for the unit.

Another strong internal possibility: Chris Capossela, who just left his job as SVP of the Microsoft Business division for unspecified duties around social initiatives. He had a similar job to Mehdi’s, with key marketing duties.

Attendees at the Imagine event were buzzing about the Mathews news, taking some focus off the program, which included an opening speech by CEO Steve Ballmer.

Ballmer did not mention Mathews onstage, which was a by-the-book overview of its online ad offerings.

Another sticky situation for Microsoft: The Imagine event was organized by another top woman exec at Microsoft, global ad sales head Carolyn Everson.

But, she left the company in mid-February after only six months, for essentially the same job at Microsoft partner Facebook.

Since then Microsoft and Facebook have been wrangling over the talent raid, including Microsoft even considering legal action to block the move.

(In yet another unrelated embarrassing situation–here’s an excerpt from a memoir by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, in which he alleges co-founder Bill Gates tried to shanghai him out of shares when he was sick with cancer.)

Like I said: Awkward!

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