Well-known online advertising exec Frank Weishaupt, who recently ran North American marketplaces for Yahoo, will join ad display performance firm Criteo to head up sales.

Weishaupt, who left Yahoo several months ago, will be based in Boston and will be hiring up to 100 salespeople. He’ll report to another former top Yahoo sales exec, Criteo President Greg Coleman.

Interestingly, one of the pair’s most pressing challenges going forward will be the recent move of Yahoo to block “retargeting” firms.

In a post last week, Peter Kafka wrote that Yahoo told Criteo and others that “it would stop selling them its ‘Class 2’ remnant inventory, which the companies used to purchase on behalf of clients and essentially resell at a premium. The idea, theoretically, is that Yahoo will sell more of those ads itself.”

Here’s the official press release:

CRITEO TAPS FRANK WEISHAUPT AND EXPANDS FOOTPRINT; OPENS BOSTON OFFICE

Leading online advertising performance platform expands US presence with Boston office and hires Former Yahoo! digital media veteran

PALO ALTO, CA — (NOVEMBER 14, 2011) – Criteo, the global leader in performance display today announced that Frank Weishaupt, former Vice President, North American Advertising Marketplaces at Yahoo!, will join the company as SVP of Sales. The company also announced the continued expansion into the US Market with the opening of an office in Boston, which will focus on sales and service to mid-market advertisers and publishers. With offices in over three continents, Criteo now employees over 400 employees while serving personalized ads on behalf of over 1200 e-commerce clients across 20 countries globally.

“Criteo is committed to bringing performance to the display advertising landscape,” said Greg Coleman, President of Criteo. “I am thrilled to have Frank, a true industry veteran with a very successful track record of scaling sales organizations, join the team to continue our momentum. Our goal at Criteo is to bring our solution to a wide variety of advertisers and publishers, and Frank will be focused on helping meet that objective.”

As a 15 year digital media veteran, one of Weishaupt’s key priorities will be to build a sales organization in Boston focused on mid-market advertisers and publishers. Weishaupt has been a key part of exponential growth for several of the world’s most influential digital media companies.

“Criteo has created a name for itself as the global leader in performance display advertising. I am excited to have joined a company that is committed to growth and a team with such passion to drive this industry forward,” said Frank Weishaupt, SVP of Sales at Criteo.

Prior to joining Criteo, Weishaupt held several key management at Yahoo! over a 10-year period. Most recently he had General Management responsibilities for the US Display, Search, and Ad Technology businesses. The focus of the role was overall monetization strategy, pricing and yield management, strategic direction of the Yahoo! Ad Network, and general management of the ad platforms and global exchange.

Weishaupt holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Northeastern University.

Criteo is hiring and looking for team members to join the global leader in performance online advertising marketing.

In a blog post by one of its execs, titled “Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5,” Adobe said what had already been reported: That it would no longer be developing its well-known Flash for mobile devices.

Here’s the key graph:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.”

Last night, reports surfaced that the high-profile software company — whose Flash technology has been a flagship product — was halting development on the mobile version of its browser plug-in.

Now, Adobe will focus its PC Web browser business on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform.

The move has big implications for Adobe going forward and also for mobile device makers, such as Google and Research In Motion. But not Apple.

As Ina Fried wrote:

“The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.”

Turns out Jobs was prescient, as usual.

Here is the full version of the Adobe blog:

Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5

POSTED BY DANNY WINOKUR, VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER, INTERACTIVE DEVELOPMENT AT ADOBE ON NOVEMBER 9, 2011 5:59 AM IN BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS, CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS, DEVELOPERS, VIDEO

Adobe is all about enabling designers and developers to create the most expressive content possible, regardless of platform or technology. For more than a decade, Flash has enabled the richest content to be created and deployed on the web by reaching beyond what browsers could do. It has repeatedly served as a blueprint for standardizing new technologies in HTML. Over the past two years, we’ve delivered Flash Player for mobile browsers and brought the full expressiveness of the web to many mobile devices.

However, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.

These changes will allow us to increase investment in HTML5 and innovate with Flash where it can have most impact for the industry, including advanced gaming and premium video. Flash Player 11 for PC browsers just introduced dozens of new features, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics for console-quality gaming and premium HD video with content protection. Flash developers can take advantage of these features, and all that our Flash tooling has to offer, to reach more than a billion PCs through their browsers and to package native apps with AIR that run on hundreds of millions of mobile devices through all the popular app stores, including the iTunes App Store, Android Market, Amazon Appstore for Android and BlackBerry App World.

We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences. We will continue to leverage our experience with Flash to accelerate our work with the W3C and WebKit to bring similar capabilities to HTML5 as quickly as possible, just as we have done with CSS Shaders. And, we will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged.

We are super excited about the next generations of HTML5 and Flash. Together they offer developers and content publishers great options for delivering compelling web and application experiences across PCs and devices. There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can’t wait to see what is still yet to come!

I am here at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale, Calif., to check out “Product Runway,” which is the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s attempt to show that it can still innovate.

First and foremost is the launch of Livestand, a personalized news reader that is similar to Flipboard and a variety of other rivals, including — soon — Google.

It’s Yahoo’s attempt to present a business-as-usual feel — amidst a long and agonizing and very public strategic overview that might also include the sale of the company (or not!), in the wake of the recent firing of its last CEO, Carol Bartz.

It has caused a lot of trauma inside Yahoo, which can’t help with innovation.

But we press on!

In other words, despite the three-ring circus going on outside, Yahoo wants you to know it is still hard at work.

We begin:

10:35 am: As the strains of U2 die out, Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving takes the stage, which is actually set up in the company’s cafeteria. I can smell lunch being made nearby and I am hungry.

Apt — Yahoo certainly needs to show off a lot of cool stuff or its fate will be cooked.

No pressure, Blake!

“Personally, I am more bullish on Yahoo today,” he said. “What is Yahoo? Simple. It’s the premier digital media company. Period. Stop.”

Oh, if it were only that easy.

10:46 am: Irving pulls out his favorite slide, which looks like a chemistry test. It lists the various elements of the product strategy, with things like personalization, mobile, premium.

Now to Livestand, which is available on the Apple iTunes app store right now.

Don’t all rush at once!

Irving notes that Livestand is more than just an app — it is a platform.

In other words, Yahoo wants to help publishers publish online. Kind of a Facebook of content.

If Yahoo can pull it off, that is. (And, of course, unless Facebook decides to do the same.)

10:50 am: Livestand is an HTML5 “personalized living magazine.”

“This is the way Web pages are going to look,” declares Irving. Which is to say, heavy on photos, swoopy navigation, a television screen-like interface.

Irving uses the example of Surfer magazine, which is a good idea since waves always look pretty. Especially in a video-in-frame with Kelly Slater in Hawaii.

But, in essence, for anyone who has used Flipboard for years now, none of this is entirely different.

10:54 am: The look of what would be the Yahoo News page is actually much more interesting, since it is clearly a whole lot better than the Web page.

Irving also shows off a “living ad” — in this case, an unusually snuggly couple on a couch. It is cool, but creepy.

When launched, the ad has tap points. Irving — naughtily declaring about what is an ad, “I’ll tap that” — taps the lady’s butt, which would also have been my move. We learn about the jeans, of course.

10:58 am: Irving then shows off the ability to add feeds.

Next, something called “Cocktails.” First up, a developer tool called Yahoo Mojito and Yahoo Manhattan, which is a hosting service. The company will open-source both the technologies in 2012.

Irving brings up Mike Kerns, VP of Personalization & Social, who came to Yahoo when it bought the innovative sports fan site called Citizen Sports.

“We like to ship sh#t,” he notes. I like Mike Kerns immediately.

Kerns intros C.O.R.E. No, it is not a secret government organization that takes out fussy bloggers, who might be more critical than Yahoo execs would like.

In fact, it stands for “content optimization relevance engine.” Of course it does.

Simply put, C.O.R.E. is trying to link the right content or whatever to the right consumers and who likes what. Ladies like this, dudes like this. Apparently, “men of multiple ages” enjoy stories about golden chicken.

11:11 am: Kerns is moving on to social, especially its integration with Facebook. While much touted, sources tell me it has gone slower than expected in terms of use, but that it is improving.

Kerns talks about the idea of matching content to conversations to interests and, well, you know — the now exhausting world of modern media consumption.

The world in which you can no longer simply read an article and enjoy it — you must comment, share, discuss, parse, tweet.

Does anyone remember when you read something cool and just kept it to yourself?

Forget it, pal! It is a full-information society now and you better get on board and start poking your friends about every little thing.

(Personally, I plan on becoming a hermit in 3 … 2 … 1.)

11:18 am: Now Tim Parsey, who is Yahoo’s design head. He is hands down the most delightful exec the company has had in a while, mostly because he loves to smirk adorkably.

He shows off Yahoo’s first original design, which was a dull list. And then another really bad logo. But Parsey loves it! It’s kitschy!

Smirk attack!

Parsey moves into what has to happen now, which is to deliver a much more emotional experience and a much better designed one. He uses words like “humanism.”

Say what? He is right — Yahoo has for too long completely ignored design as an important part of the experience.

That’s why Flipboard was so quickly touted — it was pretty and fun. And it is why everyone is simply forced to love Apple products.

11:22 am: Parsey even has a code for it, called REM — for rational, emotional and meaningful.

He shows off a weather app. People take photos and they can be used in the app. Then Yahoo Mail for the iPad, whic is also handsome with photos and video. Livestand, also pretty.

“Great way to differentiate,” says Parsey. He calls it “one Yahoo!” Indeed.

11:35 am: I’ll admit it. After Parsey-fest, I zoned out for a sec when IntoNow dude, Adam Cahan, comes up.

Donut emergency!

Back to IntoNow, it’s the television indexing service that Yahoo bought in April.

Essentially, more ways to watch the media — in this case, video — and do 53 other things at the very same time. Memo to humanity: We will all be paying continuous partial attention for the rest of eternity.

Like I said: Hermitage!

11:41 am: Product dude Irving is back, making a point that, despite all the public mishegas, Yahoo has been busy at innovating.

A redo of email, better search, social “Facebar” with Facebook, Flickr for Google Android.

Irving is correct — Yahoo’s engineers have been hard at work and deserve kudos for doing so, even with attrition issues, stock declines and questions about the company’s very future being debated daily.

The problem is that too many of these improvements are mostly incremental and essentially table stakes for tech companies, most of whom have introed many more significant innovations in the same time frame as Yahoo has.

Google did Android, Google+ (as well as some notable failures). Microsoft did Kinect, Windows Phone, Windows 8. Amazon did Kindle Fire. Facebook did a range of major updates, as it has grown like a weed.

And there’s Apple. You might have heard of the iPhone and the iPad.

You get my point. Yahoo’s Product Runway today is well done, but what it really needs to be is just the beginning of a take-off.

11:48 am: Now Q&A time.

The first question is what took so long to get Livestand out, the second is why should people use Livestand since Flipboard and others have already been around for a dog’s age.

I ask about design — mostly because I want Parsey to use the word “delicious” a lot — and also about all the turmoil around the company and its impact on product creation. (I decide not to mention that Yahoo blew its acquisition of the bookmarking site, Delicious, and then sold it.)

Parsey delivers on the delicious scale, noting that Yahoo must have one design experience and yet has a lot of different interfaces. In other words, it cannot be Apple, but it can feel a lot more cohesive.

Irving talks a little bit around the obvious elephant in the room — the future of Yahoo — noting that the product staff was trying to focus and forget the storm going on outside.

“We have dreams about what this company can be,” says Irving.

You and me both, brother.

12:04 pm: More questions that are too detailed for my tastes, since they have delivered lunch and I can see it and I am ravenous.

As Parsey might say: It looks deliiiiiccccious.

Now, let’s hope Yahoo can do even more tasty stuff.

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

At a prequel for the many VPs of Yahoo to the all-hands meeting for all 13,500 employees of the Silicon Valley Internet giant that is taking place at 11 am, Yahoo co-founder, director and former CEO Jerry Yang told the group the company was “not for sale.”

Even though, of course, it was hiring advisory firms, such as Allen & Co., to explore strategic options. Many justifiably feel “for sale” is just what Yahoo is.

Instead, Yang reassured the troops that it was business as usual at the company, in spite of the abrupt firing of its current CEO Carol Bartz yesterday.

One attendee emailed me: “Really?“

Yang told the group that the aim was to grow revenue and profit, but did not put forth a specific plan as yet. He also said the search was on for a new CEO.

Meanwhile, interim CEO Tim Morse spoke only at the end of the meeting, for the last 10 minutes.

Morse continued to be Yang’s sidekick at the all-hands meeting later, in which they reiterated their no-sale motto.

Still, the troops were restless and the event included a lot of pointed questions from employees about the ouster of Bartz and how that was going to get the company growing again.

One employee asked the board to give Bartz’s $10 million severance package to charity, to much applause.

Another query was about the shift on Bartz by Yahoo’s Chairman Roy Bostock, who praised her performance earlier this summer at the annual meeting.

How, asked the employee, did Yahoo go from full support of Bartz to fired? The basic answer from Yang: Things change!

Another employee asked about the bid to buy the Hulu premium video service. Americas head Ross Levinsohn’s answer: Yahoo did not need it to win.

Both Levinsohn and product head Blake Irving stressed how big Yahoo still is, although Yahoo’s kind of big today might not mean better.

Employees — I love them for channelling exactly what I would have asked — pressed Morse on when the strategery would be done this time. A few months, he said.

But perhaps the toughest query was about how did the board fire the CEO without first having a plan in place, which the questioning employee noted had further worsened trust issues with Yahoo leadership.

It got the biggest applause.

Trust us, said Yang.

That’s a big ask for beleaguered Yahoo staffers these days.

Meanwhile, Yahoo filed a new-less 8-K regulatory filing today about the Bartz firing.

In it, Yahoo wrote: “No new compensatory or severance arrangements were entered into in connection with these leadership changes. Ms. Bartz will receive severance benefits
for termination without cause as provided in her employment and equity award agreements.”

Here it is:

YHOO-20110907-8K-20110906

Related posts

• As Yahoo Continues to Wobble, Investors (And Board) Eye Options
• Exclusive: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Tim Morse Named Interim CEO
• Carol Bartz’s Last F%*& You — Now Aimed at Yahoo Board
• Yahoo’s Statement on Bartz Ouster
• Wall Street Likes Bartz’s Firing — Yahoo Stock Spikes on News
• My Picks for Yahoo’s Next CEO — Maybe Snoop Dogg, Ya Digg?

The firing of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz leaves open one of the bigger and more difficult jobs in tech — one that has taken its toll on many.

Nonetheless, rapper Snoop Dogg stepped right up to the Twitter plate yesterday, as soon as news broke of the ouster.

Tweeted Snoop Dogg:

“Im takn over as tha CEO of Yahoo. Need sum of tha Snoop Dogg content ya digg. Nuff Said.”

Not nearly nuff!

Thus, while the Yahoo board has yet to begin a search, I have already been hard at work on selecting the next CEO.

(Last time, the company took none of my suggestions, but after the most recent result, the directors might want to pay mind!)

Sources said Yahoo is looking for an experienced Internet type, either from inside or outside the company.

“Yahoo has put its flag in the ground as a digital media company with a technology base,” said one source. “The job requires big buckets of expertise and needs someone who will grow the company.”

Here I go with the outsiders:

Peter Chernin: The former News Corp. exec has been eyeing Yahoo for a possible takeover with other investors. Both Yahoo and I had picked him when co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down as CEO almost three years ago, and he had declined the offer. This time, perhaps a big chunk of the company and total autonomy would work, even if making a hit like “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is more fun.

Sheryl Sandberg: The COO of Facebook is sort of the anti-Bartz, with a smooth and efficient persona, and she is an experienced tech exec. But the former Google exec is at a place of growth at the social networking site, and is unlikely to want to leave the big show, especially since a blockbuster IPO is looming.

Jason Kilar: The Hulu CEO is in the midst of the process of selling the premium video service, with Yahoo as a bidder. While he has some tense relations with the studios, Kilar is top notch in his dedication to consumer products, and has a lot of experience from his stint at Amazon, too.

Dan Rosensweig: Currently CEO of IPO-headed Chegg textbook rental service, the former Yahoo exec never got a chance to run the company as its top leader. Well-connected and still well-liked by the troops at Yahoo, it still would be pretty hard for him to go home again.

Dave Goldberg: Sure, he’s married to Sandberg (see above), but the savvy CEO of polling phenom SurveyMonkey is one of the sharpest thinkers in Silicon Valley. He sold his music company to Yahoo many years ago and has a strong background in consumer online services.

Jon Miller: The chief digital exec at News Corp. almost got the CEO spot years ago when Carl Icahn was agitating for change at Yahoo, before Time Warner blocked him via a noncompete. With the mishegas at the media giant, and dwindling digital businesses there, it might be a good escape hatch for Miller.

Susan Wojcicki: The accomplished Google exec, who runs all its ad products, has the kind of calm, cool, collected persona that Yahoo could use right about now. The search giant was founded in her garage, and she has been a key part of its success since then. Wojcicki is also an understated class act in hey-look-at-me Silicon Valley.

Todd Bradley: The Hewlett-Packard exec just got blindsided when the company kicked webOS to the curb. While he is in line to run a possible spinoff of the device business, Bradley might also want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

Mike McCue: The CEO of Flipboard would certainly energize Yahoo with his intense focus on quality and consumer delight. The news app start-up could be a good addition to Yahoo, and McCue, the former Netscape and Microsoft exec who is well-liked in the Internet scene, would be, too.

Joanne Bradford: The former Yahoo advertising head bolted Bartz’s regime early on to run revenue for Demand Media. Well-liked in the ad business, she also knows where all the bodies are buried at Yahoo. Since ads and media are key at the company, she’d make an interesting choice.

Yusuf Mehdi: The Microsoft online exec would also be a left-field candidate to run Yahoo, given his even-keeled personality and longtime experience in the sector. And, though pricey, Mehdi’s impact on Bing search has been important. But he’s also been involved in the software giant’s lackluster ad and search partnership and still has not turned around the situation at MSN.

Kevin Johnson: The former Microsoft exec and current CEO of Juniper was once slated to be the CEO of Yahoo, had Microsoft managed to win the company in its hostile takeover attempt. In fact, Johnson was the architect of the idea of Yahoo running the media and Microsoft running the tech.

Tim Armstrong: Well, he might have been a good candidate before the downward slide of AOL and a recent series of questionable judgments. If Armstrong can’t keep a loud tech blogger in line, it’s not clear he can wrangle the Yahoo beast.

And here’s the insider scoop:

Ross Levinsohn: The former News Corp. exec is running the Americas for Yahoo, which puts him in charge of the company’s key businesses. But he’s still struggling to turn the ad business around, and how well he does that could be a major determinant of his success. But fantastic hair!

Blake Irving: The former Microsoft exec has an amiable nature and is well-liked at Yahoo, but he still needs to show that the company can ship some innovative products, and quickly. Like Livestand, the news reader, which is muchly late.

David Kenny: The Yahoo board member is now president of Akamai, which might preclude him from the job. But the well-regarded exec — he’s a snazzy dresser, too — ran one of the Internet’s top digital ad agencies and now has tech chops from the content delivery network.

Memo to Yahoo board: I have a million more ideas, from former Viacom exec Tom Freston to former Yahoo board member Eric Hippeau. Or why not bring back a passel of former Yahoos to advise, such as former CEO Terry Semel or former president Sue Decker?

Or Oprah! I hear Winfrey will be in Silicon Valley later this week, and she has a lot more free time now.

Like Snoop Dogg, she would fo shizzle be the bomb to cover.

Related posts

• As Yahoo Continues to Wobble, Investors (And Board) Eye Options
• Exclusive: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Tim Morse Named Interim CEO
• Carol Bartz’s Last F%*& You — Now Aimed at Yahoo Board
• Yahoo’s Statement on Bartz Ouster
• Wall Street Likes Bartz’s Firing — Yahoo Stock Spikes on News
• My Picks for Yahoo’s Next CEO — Maybe Snoop Dogg, Ya Digg?

After our grand tour of Asia last week — with stops in Korea and Japan — it seems like a perfect time to update the speaker list for our upcoming AsiaD conference in Hong Kong in October.

As Walt Mossberg and I said, we are trying to mix both U.S.-based speakers with a pan-Asian selection of speakers from across the region, and the new additions are just that.

For the international confab — this one will be held Oct. 19-21 — we’ve already announced a great lineup, including Alibaba’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; and Asus Chairman Jonny Shih.

Now, to add to that terrific lineup:

Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai is widely considered the second in command at the consumer electronics giant Sony, in charge of its key computer entertainment division, as well as now serving as executive deputy president of the whole company. In that role, the dynamic exec is at the nexus of the Japanese company’s efforts around tablets, smartphones, gaming and more. As Sony struggles to reassert its dominance over the arena, Hirai will be a key player in that effort.

Bradley Horowitz — as head of product management for Google+, the search giant’s aggressive effort to break Facebook’s hammerlock on social networking — has a perfect perspective to talk about the fast-growing area and where it is going globally. With locally-based social companies springing up all over Asia, can Google establish one the whole world will use? It’s an important question and Horowitz’s job No. 1.

At Microsoft, Andy Lees is leading one of the software giant’s most important initiatives, as president of its Windows Phone division. His come-from-behind job includes mobile software and hardware, as well as its key partnership with Nokia. With Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android far in the lead, Lees will need to win in markets globally, especially in Asia.

Peter Chernin is one of Hollywood’s top players and execs. The former top News Corp. exec is now a movie producer — his first effort, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” is a big hit. But he’s also been increasingly active in media investing in Asia of late, and has a lot to say about the global nature of entertainment in the digital age.

John Roese heads the North American R&D team for Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant making everything from heavy-duty gear for networks to mobile phones and tablets. The former CTO of Nortel, he’s heading up global development of Huawei’s cloud services for both businesses and consumers. Roese will also talk about the phenomenon of a Chinese-owned company emerging on the world technology stage.

Even in the midst of an economic downturn, there is no denying that it has been a golden time for Silicon Valley start-ups, which have enjoyed unprecedented growth and funding in the Web 2.0 era. But as they seek to expand beyond the U.S., a critical move for them all, we’ve assembled a panel of entrepreneurs to discuss it, including:

Brian Chesky is the CEO and co-founder of Airbnb, the popular online vacation rental site that recently got a huge dose of funding and an equally large amount of controversy. How Airbnb can take the company to the next level, including across the world, while dealing with the kinds of challenges the small management team has to face, will be an interesting topic for discussion.

After stints as president of Asia Pacific and Latin America operations at Google and co-founder of the online personal finance company Yodlee, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is trying her hand at a small start-up again. She’ll talk about how the recently funded Joyus, a new premium video commerce site trying to pioneer a new way to shop online, plans to expand globally.

Finally, longtime tech exec David Goldberg is now running one of tech’s most successful start-ups at SurveyMonkey, the dominant online survey company. With stints as founder of music site Launch Media, which was bought by Yahoo, and as an Entrepreneur in Residence with Benchmark Capital, he is the perfect person to explain what it’s like being an entrepreneur today in Silicon Valley.

We have even more speakers for AsiaD we’ll be announcing in the coming weeks, so get ready for what’s next.

Today, Demand Media beat Wall Street expectations in its second-quarter earning, growing revenue and lessening losses.

The Santa Monica, Calif., online content maker also announced that it had re-upped and expanded its advertising partnership with Google and also bought two start-ups in social media and advertising.

Now, it’s time for the inevitable conference call to explain it all to Wall Street analysts and the media.

2:02 pm PT: The call starts off with an unusually jaunty CEO Richard Rosenblatt, who quickly got to the real deal: Exactly how badly did Google’s changes to its search algorithm, under a program code-named Panda, hurt Demand’s content business?

Not much, says Rosenblatt, who reels off a list of things the company has done to improve its offerings, which have been dinged by many as, well, spam.

Rosenblatt was not having any of that, talking about removing 300,000 pieces of crappy content and also “quality improvements” with partners such as cheerily demented cooking goddess Rachael Ray. She might cook with spam — here is a delightful Spam Hawaiian recipe — but she ain’t spam!

2:13 pm: Now it is on to the acquisition of IndieClick. Essentially: It’s for the young people.

Then, international. Latin America Demand editorial via eHow en español! (Actually, the acquisition of Emergincast.com, an Argentine start-up. Coming soon to a blog site near you: ¿Cómo se hierve el agua?

Last, social media. Demand will be doing a lot more of it, like everyone else in the world, including more recommendations. I would really like it if some Internet company said it was going anti-social.

2:18 pm: The finance guy comes on, covering everything already in the press releases. Which is why I am cutting out here and getting a gluten-free doughnut at the Whole Foods store where I am writing this post.

It is as delicious as you might imagine a gluten-free doughnut can be. Which is to say: Not very!

2:32 pm: Q&A time from the Wall Street dudes — and, let it be said, they are all dudes.

The first question is about the “cleansing” of its cruddy content and if it is all flushed out.

It might be baked-on sludge, but Rosenblatt assures that Demand has it all figured out.

Then, a query about international and how the company decides what to pick. Algo, of course! And local content writers.

Back to the spam content: Does the need to have better content mean less of it? Kind of, since there is a lot more video. But still a lot of content churning out of Demand!

A question about Facebook and how to program Demand content into it. Good lord, it’s hyper-poking!

“It’s not clear the best way of how you expand into all these properties,” said Rosenblatt, specifically referring to its acquisition today of both IndieClick and RSS Graffiti.

The next question is how successful Demand is in the display and brand business, and how IndieClick, a premium ad company aimed at niche blogs, will be integrated in.

More on social media advertising’s future. Aaaghh, this is as obvious as a store-bought-crust apple pie baked by Rachael Ray.

Rosenblatt notes that its flagship site, eHow, is but one means of distribution, but Demand content is going all over the place and winging by people when they least expect it.

“Social is more effective … to try to find stuff you didn’t know that you needed,” says Rosenblatt, who also would not dis search as a means of discovery.

That’s important, since Google is a major traffic driver and advertising partner, when it is not terrorizing Demand and others with its search algo version of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor Snape.

And presto, here comes a question about Demand’s Google ad relationship, which Rosenblatt touts nicely.

Of course he does. It’s tastier than spam, after all.

According to multiple sources close to the situation, Ning has been talking recently to a large pool of companies about selling itself, including Google and Groupon, as well as to a number of private equity companies.

Interest has been both incoming to and outgoing from Ning.

The talks around the fate of the high-profile social networking platform — co-founded by Silicon Valley icon and investor Marc Andreessen — are still early and might not result in a sale, although a number of sources said the company was being valued at up to $150 million.

That price is well below previous loftier valuations for Ning and would mean only a break-even for investors, who have put close to $120 million into Ning since it was founded in 2004.

Among its investors: Andreessen, LinkedIn Chairman and investor Reid Hoffman, Legg Mason, Allen & Company and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

There are no bankers involved in the preliminary efforts, in which Andreessen has been involved, although discussions with Google and Groupon have been substantive in nature.

Several other companies — including AOL, Demand Media and Go Daddy — have also been approached or are kicking tires at the site. Most would be interested in Ning’s technology for creating premium social networks.

Ning bills itself on its site as “The World’s Largest Platform for Creating Social Websites.”

The sales effort grew out of a parallel one to possibly raise more money for the start-up. Sources said there was some incoming interest, so talking to a larger pool of buyers was undertaken recently.

Such a move would be an interesting one for Ning, which has undergone a series of ups and downs over its history, including dramatic management and business plan shifts.

Its most recent plan has been to go all-premium, trying to find a way to turn the start-up into a profitable enterprise.

That’s worked out well, the company has previously said, with strong growth. Since its business shift a year ago, Ning has said, it has had 400 percent year-on-year revenue growth, going from 17,000 to more than 100,000 subscribers and with 60 million monthly active users.

Ning’s shift has been under the leadership of Jason Rosenthal, who had been COO of Ning until he replaced its founding CEO, Gina Bianchini, in early 2010.

Ning has also recently tried to get into the highly competitive mobile social communications arena, with a service called Mogwee. The traction for the product does not appear to have been significant.

Ning’s Rosenthal declined to comment about any sales efforts when reached by me today.

Yahoo turned in another weak performance in the second quarter, with yet another decline in revenue.

This time it was five percent, compared to last quarter’s six percent. In other words, at least things are looking up as they go down!

While earnings per share rose smartly, Wall Street is still looking for strong sales growth from the Silicon Valley Internet giant, which seems unable to provide it.

Blamed most this time for the revenue fall: Yahoo’s changes in its display sales operations in the key Americas region, reasons for which were largely unspecified in the initial company press release. (You can see the damage in this slide deck from the company here.)

Maybe Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will explain it all in its upcoming conference call with analysts (or she could try the I-don’t-know approach taken by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch in PhoneGate hearings in Britain earlier today!).

2 pm PT: It starts with the usual regulatory blah-blah, which I always enjoy.

Bartz gets right into it, opening with the key problems with China’s Alibaba Group, as well as its display and search revenue weaknesses.

The fight with Alibaba is over its Alipay payments unit, which was spun out of the Chinese company without Yahoo’s say-so. Yahoo is a big shareholder.

Bartz says that the company was working on a settlement night and day.

But she quickly gets onto how display did not perform as expected in its key Americas arena. “Obviously, I am not happy,” she said.

Obvi! Neither are shareholders, Carol.

She says it was not about new competitive development. It was not about the economy. It was not about engagement.

So what was it? Changes in its sales leadership and organization, says Bartz, which has included talent walking out the door in droves.

A lot more than Yahoo expected, but no surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention to the brain drain at the company.

Bartz promises a new approach to sales, part of its endless turnaround, which is beginning to feel like a digital version of “Waiting for Godot.”

Search revenue, though, says Bartz, was better than expected.

2:11 pm: CFO Tim Morse is on now, running through the numbers and the display shortfall in the Americas region.

“We simply did not have appropriate coverage,” says Morse, noting consumer products, tech and autos as weak spots in the advertising market.

Thank goodness, then, for the guarantees from search revenue in the Microsoft partnership deal.

More numbers and then it is back to Bartz to talk about search, which is going better than the last quarter, when it was the culprit for the revenue decline.

She says that Microsoft and Yahoo were working together to improve the issues.

“We’d like to be further down the road,” says Bartz about the goal of search revenue per search growth, as well as settling all the other problems, such as the Asian issues.

And, by further, I am presuming she means actual forward movement, which is what roads are actually for.

2:27 pm: Q&A time, the part of our program where Wall Street analysts do not ask the questions that need asking (and where I win fancy journalism awards for pointing this delta out!).

Therefore, Bartz is first thanked for providing “color” about the display disaster and is not asked about more specifics of the disaster itself.

The second question still does not get to it either, but she does note Yahoo’s sales force has to sell beyond “Gee, we’re big” and come up with better ad solutions.

“The issue is we did not have enough sales people in front of the big clients,” says Bartz.

That’s because all those former Yahoos are now working at Groupon, LivingSocial, Facebook and on down the line and now in front of big clients for those hotter companies.

2:34 pm: Question about its Asian assets. Yahoo’s talks with Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba are separate, says Bartz, although I would add that they have non-movement in common.

And also a question about Yahoo’s interest in the acquisition of the Hulu premium online video service.

Bartz winks verbally and says nothing, which translates into: Of course, it is interested.

More on the reasons for the display fall-off, which Bartz makes clear is not due to big competitive threats, but internal issues.

Maybe she’s saving big competitive threats as the reason for a revenue decline in the third quarter!

I look forward to the quarter I get the finger pointed at me for causing revenue to fall, due to my snarky posts.

Now, we are into softball questions about improvements in engagement. It’s up, but no one asks why Yahoo is still not doing anything very cutting edge in product innovation compared to competitors.

I believe Google has launched at least 14 new social networks since this Sunday, along with its strong quarterly performance last week. And Apple, well, blew away its quarter today as it is about to release more cool new stuff later this week.

And that might be the crux of the issue for Yahoo, which might not solve its woes by throwing a more focused sales army at the issue.

That’s because Yahoo’s products are simply not nearly has social as Facebook or even Google right now, which might be the true problem as old customers move on to new advertising solutions.

Whatever the reason, Yahoo clearly needs a refresh of its ad products and how it sells them, especially in its fast-growing mobile, video and communications products.

Bartz talks about getting better expertise, a tighter regional focus and other issues of going to market, which is perhaps something she might have realized many, many quarters ago.

After all, she’s been in charge for a while, and these issues are not new.

In fact, in an earlier quarter, Bartz was stressing “tentpole” events and anchor media properties and the power of the size of Yahoo as a selling point.

This was in April, in fact, in the first quarter of this year.

As I wrote then:

“CEO Carol Bartz excited was the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s traffic gusher for big tentpole events such as the Super Bowl and the Oscars. In fact, Bartz practically sounded like a gushy “Entertainment Tonight” flunky when talking to Wall Street analysts about Yahoo’s Oscar news, games and other offerings. She proudly noted the site’s efforts generated more than a billion pages views.”

Now big is out! Moving on!

The last question is another about Yahoo’s talks with its Asian partners.

“It’s complex,” says Bartz.

You can say that again.

Tomorrow, Yahoo will announce its second-quarter earnings and, once again, Wall Street is expecting yet another meh performance from the Internet giant.

In his “cheat sheet” report, Citi analyst Mark Mahaney’s take is pretty typical of the sentiment of investors weary of waiting for a rebound in Yahoo’s growth.

“From $15, we believe YHOO shares have upwards bias,” wrote Mahaney, “but we don’t have real conviction.”

That’s become the unfortunate norm for Yahoo, whose management has continued to struggle with a variety of issues, from its ongoing talent drain to an unexpected and still unresolved fight with its main partner in China to the troubles in its search partnership with Microsoft to the overall lack of ability to turbocharge its advertising and other businesses as has been long promised.

While it is certainly not for lack of trying, the prospect of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz wheeling out another series of excuses for the lack of turnaround and — something many have been looking for most of all — a clearer strategic vision for the company on the earnings call on Tuesday, will surely not produce a dulcet impact on its depressed shares.

The stock has continued to dip well below $15 a share, down almost six percent last week and 13 percent for the last six months.

That’s why some think that Yahoo’s interest in bidding for the Hulu premium video service, which is being sold by its media giant owners, might be just the bold and risky move to get the company centered around.

With the online video ad business growing and the need for Yahoo to focus its many ambitions, some think Hulu could be a key piece in becoming the “premier digital media company” that the Internet giant has recently taken to calling itself.

By doubling down on what Hulu represents — that would be the premium online video business — it’s a fast-growing category Yahoo’s large sales force would be well-suited for.

In addition, a purchase of Hulu could give Yahoo some much-needed talent in the arena, including its CEO Jason Kilar and others.

“Of all the buyers, Yahoo is the most in need of a purchase to change its paradigm,” said one observer. “If it could not pay too much, Hulu would give Yahoo some differentiating that it really needs.”

Of course, paying too much for Hulu is a key consideration mentioned by all who are looking at it, including Google, AT&T, Amazon and others.

How to determine the value of Hulu’s content licenses, both now and later — given that once those rights expire whoever owns Hulu will eventually have to compete in acquiring the often high-priced material from Hollywood — is the biggest question they are asking.

Is that worth $1 billion or $2 billion? Can a new owner keep up the momentum needed to successfully maintain the Hulu business well after those content rights expire? And, of course, which company would be best suited to accomplish this task?

Yahoo certainly has all the potential to be at the front of that line, despite being managed erratically for far too long. But — also as usual — there is the endless debate internally over whether buying it will fix problems.

Whatever happens, most agree that something dramatic needs to happen at Yahoo, rather than the continual story of flatness that has been coming out of the company for far too long.

And we’ll all see if that’s improved after the close of the market tomorrow, when Wall Street is expecting Yahoo to report revenue of $1.11 billion on earnings of 18 cents.

That’s a revenue decline of two percent, which is not great, especially considering Google’s strong performance last week. Then again, it’s better than the first quarter’s six percent drop in revenue for Yahoo.

Like I said: Meh.

Here’s a handy helper for those following the fate of the Hulu premium online video service, whose noisy efforts to sell itself have gotten a lot of attention of late:

“In preliminary talks” = “hawking itself to one of a half dozen big moneybag tech companies who will visit with Hulu’s bankers and management to see its presentation at Morgan Stanley’s office in Century City in Los Angeles.”

Last Friday, for example, that meant a look-see for Microsoft execs, to show the software giant the story of how paying top dollar for the popular Hulu would be a great investment.

This week, sources said, Yahoo will get the expected gander at the books too, among the other companies targeted by Hulu as part of a sales process in its very early stages.

Among those companies on the short list, sources said, along with Microsoft and Yahoo are: Google, Verizon, AT&T and Amazon.

None of these should come as a surprise, since they all have a big interest in the digital distribution of content business.

Google is perhaps the most interesting and difficult of the group, due to both its massive YouTube unit and the even more massive interest by government regulators about its disturbing massiveness.

Amazon is the company that seems most suited as a Hulu buyer, since it already makes its business selling and distributing content. In addition, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar was a former exec — bringing a certain level of familiarity and presumably much less of the grumpy disgruntlement that he experienced with Hulu’s current media giant owners.

Microsoft seems like the longest shot and least enthusiastic, although it certainly could afford it.

As for Yahoo: Good lord, it needs something sexy to tell weary investors.

Not in the initial round, but other possible acquirers Hulu is targeting: Facebook, Netflix, Samsung and Liberty Media.

And definitely not among those kicking the tires: Disney, News Corp. and Comcast, the trio of partners who own Hulu, along with Providence Equity Partners.

The big question, of course, is whether media-focused Apple — a notorious buyer of almost nothing — would be interested in Hulu.

These blind dates with the best possible buyers will presumably give each insight into Hulu’s business and give Hulu information on what they are looking for.

Sources who have heard the pitch said Hulu is positioning itself as an inevitable competitor to cable, which seems an odd position to take, unless it can get regular access to the kind of top-drawer content that consumers want.

And that will be the most important issue for anyone buying Hulu: The time and terms of rights to the television and movie content on the site, which has been a critical part of its success.

Buyers I have interviewed said Hulu has to offer at least an 18-month license for its content and a pile of rights to hit shows to differentiate itself from competitors.

As Peter Kafka wrote, Hulu buyers would indeed get exclusive content, but with strings attached.

He also noted that the latest content licenses for Hulu’s owner/partners — Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox — have recently been completed, deals that will stay intact if Hulu is sold.

Unlike Netflix, which has had to pay top dollar for a small pile of premium content while deftly using a large archive of older content to attract subscribers, Hulu’s success has had a lot to do with more access to popular current shows offered by its media giant owners.

Those shows include TV hits such as “The Office” and “Glee.”

That access has become a point of contention with those owners, who have differed with Hulu management about what comes next for the mostly advertising-supported site, even though its slick product has been a clear hit with consumers.

Of course, some speculate that Hulu might not sell at all, just as it never went public as it had said it might do previously. In that case, it will be interesting to see what will become of Hulu once the music stops.

(And, if anyone would like to email me the Hulu presentation or notes on it, please do, so I can formulate a bid myself!)

But, until this deal churns slowly, leakily and loudly forward — let’s enjoy some apt Hulu content. As usual, the fun version of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” by the kids from “Glee” was not available on the site.

Thus, I selected frequent “Glee” guest star Gwyneth Paltrow belting out Joan Jett’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me” on the show, as a good alternate metaphor for the sales process:

He just got $6 million more in funding, bringing the total for the tech news and research company to $15 million. Reed Elsevier Ventures is the newest investor, along with current ones, Alloy Ventures and True Ventures.

Malik, who founded GigaOM five years ago, is also a partner at True. He said he still owns a substantial stake in GigaOM after the funding, which apparently valued his company at $40 million.

GigaOM–which is better known for its popular tech news and analysis blog–will use the money to turbocharge its premium subscription service, called GigaOM Pro. That service charges $199 a year for deep-dive reports in areas including mobile, clean tech and cloud computing.

Here’s my video chitchat with Malik:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110526/video-om-talks-about-6-million-giga-funding/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110511/exclusive-yahoo-looking-at-5to1-purchase/ http://allthingsd.com/20110511/exclusive-yahoo-looking-at-5to1-purchase/#comments Thu, 12 May 2011 02:50:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=43853

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo is in advanced talks to buy 5to1, a self-serve premium advertising platform, for $25 million.

The Los Angeles start-up is run by Jim Heckman, a well-known Internet exec.

It also was co-founded and funded by Yahoo Americas head Ross Levinsohn, but he apparently divested himself from 5to1 when he joined Yahoo.

Levinsohn and Heckman worked together at Fox Interactive, a News Corp. unit.

The company had raised about $13 million in venture funding, including from Fuse Capital, which was where Levinsohn worked before coming to Yahoo.

That link is likely to make the deal, which is not yet complete, carefully scrutinized inside and outside Yahoo.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110511/exclusive-yahoo-looking-at-5to1-purchase/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20110505/liveblogging-demand-medias-q1-earnings-perky-perfecting/ http://allthingsd.com/20110505/liveblogging-demand-medias-q1-earnings-perky-perfecting/#comments Thu, 05 May 2011 21:13:31 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=43614

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s the liveblog of the conference call:

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

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

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

As in, bad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All Panda questions, natch!

Rosenblatt seemed calm, cool and collected.

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

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

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

More Google algo change questions.

I suspect there is a new tactic afoot by Demand: Bore us into submission about the traffic devastation from Larry Page’s minions with endless questions about algo.

Finally, a question about mobile and international expansion. Apparently, Demand content is going to be translated into five different languages.

Yay! I am readying my version of “How to Boil Water” in French! (“Comment Faire Bouillir L’eau”!)

Mobile is going to be big too for Demand, which it is for everyone.

Then it was onto a question about improving content, including paying its writers more moolah, which would then eat into the Demand cheaper content business model.

I liked that question! I suddenly decided I was going to shift to a lugubrious post on the history of the Maginot Line in 132 parts!

Oops, Rosenblatt said the data has to show that the peeps want those longer pieces.

Back to the boiling water opus!

It’s on to some video questions and then back to search, as in diversifying away from relying on search to get traffic and premium prices for its advertising.

As in, how much are you going to cozy up to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg?

“It’s less about where traffic comes from and more about where they land,” said Rosenblatt, except you just know he sent a lovely floral bouquet plus a hefty selection of citrus to Zuckerberg’s new house in Silicon Valley right after Panda roared.

Rosenblatt deflected a lot of questions in this arena. “We still think that search is a fantastic way” to gain traffic, he said, making sure Google’s Page did not chomp off his hand as he courted his social networking nemesis at Facebook.

But as the old Kikuyu proverb goes: “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”

More likely, as Mary Chapin Carpenter sings: “Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug.”

We’ll see which is which for Demand in the quarters ahead.

Until then, here’s Carpenter performing her song, “The Bug”:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110505/liveblogging-demand-medias-q1-earnings-perky-perfecting/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110328/flixster-update-warner-bros-very-interested-as-yahoo-drops-outs-of-bidding-for-social-movie-site/ http://allthingsd.com/20110328/flixster-update-warner-bros-very-interested-as-yahoo-drops-outs-of-bidding-for-social-movie-site/#comments Mon, 28 Mar 2011 09:47:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=42066

Recently, BoomTown reported that Flixster–the popular social movie site whose brands include the Rotten Tomatoes premium reviews site–was in early acquisition discussions with several suitors.

Now, said sources, Warner Bros. appears to be the frontrunner in various talks to buy the entertainment site, while Internet giant Yahoo has dropped out due to price concerns.

The reason for interest from the Time Warner-owned studio, said sources, is due to a spate of recent digital efforts, including its expansion of a movie rental experiment on Facebook.

As MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka wrote last night:

Facebook users watch “The Dark Knight” on the social network for $3. Now it has added five more movies, and is asking more money for three recent releases: It will cost you 40 Facebook Credits–the equivalent of $4–to rent “Inception,” “Life As We Know It” and “Yogi Bear” on the site. The first two “Harry Potter” movies, however, are at the original price.

Flixster has a strong presence on the Silicon Valley social networking giant, which could make it a good vehicle to attract people to the movie rental effort, as well as a popular mobile app.

Interestingly, Rotten Tomatoes was once owned outright by another traditional media giant: News Corp.

It is now only a minority shareholder, after trading Rotten Tomatoes for a 20 percent stake in the combined entity a little over a year ago.

News Corp., which owns 20th Century Fox Studios, is not bidding for Flixster, several sources said.

The price being discussed for the San Francisco-based start-up is between $60 million and $90 million.

Any acquisition negotiations could always fail, of course. In fact, Flixster held advanced discussions in late 2007 with IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Flixster trades all kinds of recommendations, ratings and news and even posts user-generated movie reviews on its Web site and via widgets on social networking sites, mostly on Facebook, and on mobile devices.

Co-founded in 2006 by CEO Joe Greenstein and CTO Saran Chari, Flixster has raised $7 million in venture funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as garnering angel investments, such as from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

The combination with Rotten Tomatoes and its more robust Web presence made a lot of sense. It features mostly premium content, including professional reviews, trailer videos and news.

The site is famous for its clever fresh and rotten tomato rating system for movies.

I have not received a response from emails sent to Flixster and Warner Bros. requesting comment.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110328/flixster-update-warner-bros-very-interested-as-yahoo-drops-outs-of-bidding-for-social-movie-site/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20110321/asana-hires-coo-type-van-sant-first-biz-side-hire-for-group-collaboration-start-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20110321/asana-hires-coo-type-van-sant-first-biz-side-hire-for-group-collaboration-start-up/#comments Tue, 22 Mar 2011 01:19:47 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=41770

As it gets ramped up for a wider launch, Asana, the high-profile workplace collaboration start-up founded by top former Facebook execs, has hired former SolarWinds product strategy exec Kenny Van Zant in a “COO-type of role.”

Van Zant, who will be Asana’s first business-side hire, has also worked at a variety of tech companies, including Cisco.

Co-founders Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein remain at the top of the leadership at the productivity software company, which–perhaps in keeping with its yoga-style name–does not have official titles.

But Van Zant will essentially fulfill the COO role, focusing on bringing Asana to the enterprise market in a socially-fueled, “bottom-up” approach.

“We now have a great product and are ready for our next phase of bringing it to the market,” said Moskovitz, in an interview this afternoon with BoomTown. “While Justin and I continue to work on product and engineering, Kenny will be the driver of that launch.”

Specifically, in a blog post today, Moskovitz wrote:

“Kenny will be leading functions outside of product and engineering, and serve as a key driver for Asana’s marketing and corporate strategy.”

Asana, which is aimed at helping people work on projects together in groups, is now in private beta.

It tackles the often unexciting, but very large and problematic, workplace collaboration and communications software market.

In Sanskrit, “asana” means “sitting down” and refers to strong but relaxed postures in yoga, which presumably means the product will help frustrated workers achieve a digital form of nirvana.

The San Francisco-based start-up, which has raised $9 million in venture funding from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, now has 15 employees.

Asana had previously garnered just over $1 million in an angel round, which included a spate of Silicon Valley bigwigs.

Still, it has not, thankfully, received the intense hype of other innovative start-ups from former Facebookers–hello, Quora!

That said, many who are using Asana think it will make a huge splash as it is rolled out and attempts to bring consumer-style tools to the workplace.

There are, of course, a range of companies doing this in different ways–from Jive to Yammer to LinkedIn and to a variety of cloud-based enterprise efforts by Google and Microsoft.

In an interview, Van Zant said the time was ripe for big changes in the way enterprise-aimed products were bought and sold.

“I will be focused on selling our enterprise software product from the bottom up, rather than targeting the CIO,” said Van Zant. “It is clear the world of enterprise is being impacted by consumer behavior.”

While he does not start until Monday, Van Zant speculated that Asana’s free product offering will remain, with a premium version to come.

Benchmark’s Matt Cohler, who made the Asana investment for the firm and is on its board, said the time is right for such businesses aimed at enterprise transformation.

“Kenny wrote the book on this at SolarWinds,” he said. “The consumerization of the enterprise isn’t going to happen–it already has.”

Here is a demo video Asana put out in February of an open house, as well as the blog post from Asana on the Van Zant hire:

Asana Open House from Jerry Phillips on Vimeo.

Justin and I are excited to welcome Kenny Van Zant as the newest member of the Asana team. Kenny will be leading functions outside of product and engineering, and serve as a key driver for Asana’s marketing and corporate strategy.

Until now we’ve focused primarily on developing the Asana product into the best of class solution for task management and project execution. Encouraged by positive feedback from the early adopters in our beta program, we’re now preparing for the company’s next phase–bringing this technology to the rest of the market–and we can’t imagine a better partner than Kenny to drive this strategy and build a strong organization to support it. At SolarWinds, Kenny helped pioneer the bottom-up distribution model for selling software and SaaS into enterprises and small businesses–a sales approach we plan to develop further at Asana. This experience, together with an almost uncanny overlap of values, made it clear that Kenny is the right fit.

While finding Kenny concludes a long search for the right leader of Asana’s business operations, we are continuing to grow the team, looking for passionate designers and engineers to join us in our common purpose: using software to help groups of people work together more effectively.

–Dustin

Kenny Van Zant is a technology entrepreneur with leadership experience in start-ups and public companies. Kenny was most recently the SVP and Chief Product Strategist for SolarWinds (NYSE: SWI) from 2006-2010, where he was responsible for products, marketing, and corporate strategy. At SolarWinds, Kenny helped pioneer a disruptive business model for selling software and SaaS into the enterprise and SMB segments from the “bottom-up,” using inside sales, online marketing, free products, and a loyal user community. Based on a unique combination of growth and profitability, SolarWinds enjoyed a successful IPO in May of 2009.

Prior to SolarWinds, Kenny was the EVP of Marketing and GM of the Communications BU for Motive (NASD: MOTV) and the co-founder and COO for BroadJump (acquired by Motive), where he managed the company’s growth from start-up in 1999 to over $60M in revenue and 350 global employees within 3 years.

Kenny has a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110321/asana-hires-coo-type-van-sant-first-biz-side-hire-for-group-collaboration-start-up/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20110316/100-percent-fresh-exclusive-flixsterrotten-tomatoes-in-acquisition-talks-with-yahoo-and-others/ http://allthingsd.com/20110316/100-percent-fresh-exclusive-flixsterrotten-tomatoes-in-acquisition-talks-with-yahoo-and-others/#comments Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:02:34 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=41652

Flixster–the popular social movie site whose brands include the Rotten Tomatoes premium reviews site, as well as BuddyTV–is in early acquisition talks with several suitors, including Yahoo, said sources close to the situation.

The price being discussed for the San Francisco-based start-up is between $60 million and $90 million, said several sources, in talks that are “substantive.”

Nonetheless, any acquisition negotiations could always fail. In fact, Flixster held advanced discussions in late 2007 with IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Along with Yahoo, which is interested in bringing in a strong team to bolster the entertainment offerings of the Silicon Valley Internet portal, sources said several media giants are also eyeing Flixster in order to strengthen their ties to entertainment consumers. Likely candidates in this regard include Disney and Warner Bros.

Interestingly, one of Flixster’s big shareholders is News Corp., which traded its Rotten Tomatoes unit for a 20 percent stake in the combined entity a little over a year ago.

But its minority stake gives News Corp. little influence over Flixster’s fate, although its IGN gaming unit head Roy Bahat is on the Flixster board. News Corp.–which has been shedding Web properties, such as its current effort to sell MySpace–is not bidding for Flixster.

But the interest in the site by Yahoo and others is obvious.

Flixster has attracted a huge online audience, which trades all kinds of recommendations, ratings, news and even post user-generated movie reviews on the Web site and via widgets on social networking sites, mostly on Facebook. Its recent mobile app efforts have been successful.

Co-founded in 2006 by CEO Joe Greenstein and CTO Saran Chari, Flixster has raised $7 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as garnering angel investments, such as from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

The combination with Rotten Tomatoes and its more robust Web presence made a lot of sense. It features mostly premium content, including professional reviews, trailer videos and news.

The site is famous for its clever fresh and rotten tomato rating system for movies.

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment and I have not received a response from emails sent to Greenstein.

Until he does, here’s my video interview with Greenstein, Chari and COO Steve Polsky, in which they talked about the deal to combine Flixster with Rotten Tomatoes:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110316/100-percent-fresh-exclusive-flixsterrotten-tomatoes-in-acquisition-talks-with-yahoo-and-others/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20110302/exclusive-microsoft-mulls-legally-poking-facebook-over-ad-talent-raid/ http://allthingsd.com/20110302/exclusive-microsoft-mulls-legally-poking-facebook-over-ad-talent-raid/#comments Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:10:41 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=41223

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.

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