Zynga CIO Debra Chrapaty, who has also done high-ranking stints at other big companies such as Cisco and Microsoft, has been named CEO of enterprise cloud storage company Nirvanix.

She replaces Dru Borden, who will remain at the San Diego-based company as SVP of planning and development and who will also remain a director. Chrapaty will also remain executive chairwoman of the board of Nirvanix, which has investments from Khosla Ventures and Intel Capital.

Chrapaty has most recently been CIO of Zynga, but was also SVP of Cisco’s collaboration software unit and was a corporate VP at Microsoft. She was also president and COO of E*Trade Technologies.

In an email to me, Chrapaty wrote: “I had a great run at Zynga, wish the company and the team the best. But this is a really unique opportunity to leverage a company that is at the center of unstoppable trends (to cloud which hasn’t really affected Fortune 1000 storage yet) and a company that already has some great existing people and customers and investors you have known for decades.”

Zynga has seen a number of high-level departures and top management reorgs in recent months, as it seeks to turn around its recent rocky performance.

Zynga said that Chrapaty, who was hired from Cisco in 2011, will be replaced by Zynga exec Dorion Carroll.

“We thank Debra for her leadership and contributions to Zynga over the past years and wish her luck in her future endeavors,” said Zynga COO David Ko in a statement. “As one of our Zynga Fellows, Dorion has provided direction, leadership and management across numerous technology and products teams at Zynga over the past three years as well as being one of our most senior technology leaders.”

The culture-celebrating hijinks continue at Yahoo, it seems.

After free food and smartphones and even dressing up as a Yahoo purple banger, CEO Marissa Mayer now has a high-ranking exec dancing for employee enjoyment.

As part of an effort to improve participation in the annual Yahoo Employee Satisfaction Survey (YESS), Mayer instituted a punishment for the lowest participation rate of any division on her executive staff.

The culprit turned out to be Jackie Reses, EVP of people and development for Yahoo, which includes the unlikely combo of human resources and business development.

Thus, Reses apparently had to dance to the hit K-pop song “Gangnam Style” with her staff at the weekly FYI employee meeting at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ on Friday.

Despite having a rep as an intense New Yorker, said one employee, Reses has some “decent moves.” Others agreed.

Also decent was one of the top results of YESS, which showed that employee belief in the future vision of the company was up 32 points year over year.

That’s not a big surprise, given the upward trajectory of Yahoo’s shares of late. But, more to the point, it has a weak comparable in last year’s survey, which painted a picture of a deeply demoralized workplace. That’s because the 2011 YESS questions went out to employees the week that the company fired CEO Carol Bartz, with most of the responses gathered in the ensuing weeks.

Despite the improvement, this year’s YESS also still showed a lot of worry about whether Yahoo leadership can execute, and whether the company can achieve strong results over the long term.

[UPDATE: One reader said the Yahoo survey is now called YEES, the Yahoo Employee Engagement Survey. I could not determine if that name change had been made.]

That’s the question that at least one Wall Street firm was asking, in a downgrade of Yahoo stock today. In dropping Yahoo’s rank to “market-perform,” Sanford C. Bernstein analysts noted worries about its turnaround efficacy, a possibly jarring reorg of its advertising unit, and also whether the future sale of its assets in China’s Alibaba Group can save the day again, as it did for last quarter’s results.

“We think there may be upside from an eventual Alibaba IPO at a valuation much higher than $50B or a Yahoo! core turn-around, but it is hard to have high conviction in either given the facts we currently have,” said the report, in part. “In addition, there is manageable but real downside risk: reorganization (e.g., of the sales force) could be negative for revenues, management could decide to invest in growth now and cut excess later, and MSFT RPS guarantee could expire without a renewal.”

Those are all good questions for investors to ask, of course, although more have been caught up in the hype/hope ahead of actual performance gains.

Still, it’s no sweat to get caught up in digital execs being made to trip the light fantastic for their weak results. So, since I was not there to enjoy Reses’ performance, click here for an also fun-tastic JibJab Gangnam video I made of her.

As I had previously reported, Yahoo’s key business unit — its advertising sales force — is now getting details of a reorganization by its new leader, COO Henrique De Castro.

In making the changes, just weeks ahead of Yahoo’s annual sales conference in Las Vegas on Jan. 21, De Castro is borrowing rather heavily from the set-up of the powerful ad business at Google, from whence he came.

By shifting the sales organization to a “category” model, sales reps at the Silicon Valley Internet giant will sell all of Yahoo’s ad products, as well as its search offerings, across channels in a vertical process organized around advertiser segments, such as automotive, entertainment and packaged goods.

Yahoo has long sold its advertising in a regional and tiered organization against premium and performance inventory in display and search, designed to avoid vertical conflict. Thus, the sales staff have built up advertiser relationships across many areas, which will not work in the new system.

Sources inside the company said regional leaders will now be shifted to running various verticals. There will be support specialists for those areas, too.

Mark Ellis, who was most recently VP of North American sales and global partnerships, will pay a key role in the new org, said sources. It is not clear, though, what role Peter Foster, who has headed audience advertising, will play. Another high-ranking exec, Keith Kaplan, has apparently been shifted to focus on agency relationships.

As I had previously written, there are many different ways to organize sales, but making such major change has potentially large ramifications on Yahoo’s financial performance, at least in the short term, since advertising makes up the bulk of its revenue.

According to numerous sources inside Yahoo, the changes are causing some measure of worry and confusion across the salesforce at the company, since it comes after a lot of wrenching changes over the last year.

That includes the departure of well-regarded Chief Revenue Officer Michael Barrett in mid-October, after De Castro got the COO job. He has left a large gap in sales leadership and in maintaining strong relationships with big advertisers and agencies. De Castro himself is not as well known in the ad marketplace, despite many years at Google in its sales organization.

He will likely have a more high-profile next week at the International CES, the huge annual consumer electronics show taking place in Las Vegas, along with new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who was a top product exec at Google. The pair is planning on meeting with major ad clients while there, which is their first significant outreach to marketers since taking their new roles at Yahoo.

De Castro had outlined the new ad reorg plan immediately after a multiday offsite with top sales leaders several weeks ago, and said the changes would come at the very beginning of 2013.

The ad staff at Yahoo begin to hear of the changes on Friday, so it looks like De Castro has met his deadline.

As part of restructuring, David Ko, Zynga’s chief mobile officer, and Steve Chiang, its EVP of games, will report directly to Pincus, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the changes.

Ko and Chiang previously reported to COO John Schappert, one of Zynga’s priciest — and most prized — recruits from Electronic Arts.

Update: Zynga provided an official statement this morning: “We can confirm that in order to unify our company around a multiplatform approach, we reorganized our teams in July to integrate web and mobile groups. These groups are led by David Ko, our Chief Mobile Officer and our EVP of Games Steve Chiang, who are overseeing our game divisions, our Chief Operating Officer John Schappert overseeing our day to day business operations and our CTO Cadir Lee, overseeing our new Platform division; all of whom report to our CEO Mark Pincus. Our players expect their favorite games on every platform and we want to unlock everyone in the company to continue moving quickly against the multiplatform opportunity.”

However, Bloomberg’s report suggests that Schappert has “lost support within the company and taken some of the blame for underperformance.”

According to sources that spoke to AllThingsD, the situation is more complicated than that, as the statement issued this morning suggests.

While at least one source agrees with the assessment that Schappert is in the dog house, other sources say the main purpose of the reorg is to make games work across multiple platforms by prioritizing mobile. That has been challenging for Zynga, since up until now it was easy to make increasingly more money on Facebook. Plus, as the founder, Pincus has always closely overseen game development, and at times continues to hold the title of Chief Product Officer.

More evidence that there continues to be a blurring of the lines is that Ko is now overseeing key game franchises on Facebook — not just mobile, insiders tell AllThingsD. By giving Ko more control, Pincus is obviously serious about helping the two game silos work closely together.

But going forward, it’s unclear what role Schappert is playing now.

As yet another example of his diminishing role, sources close to the situation say Schappert is no longer heading up the company’s ad technology, which has been handed off to Cadir Lee, Zynga’s CTO. The list of things that Schappert is responsible for is now relatively small, especially in comparison to the size of his paycheck.

A year ago in April, when Zynga first lured him away from EA, his compensation was valued at $42.8 million, according to Bloomberg’s estimates.

Last week, the company wildly missed its internal projections, blaming a number of woes, including changes made to the Facebook platform. In an interview with Schappert immediately following earnings, he did not let on that a shake-up was underway, and spoke about a wide range of topics, including the company’s future plans.

Yesterday, Zynga’s shares continued to spiral downward, losing another 2 percent, to close at $2.95 a share. Since raising $1 billion in a public offering late last year, the company’s stock has fallen more than 70 percent. In early trading this morning, shares reached a new low, crashing 3.7 percent to hit $2.84 share.

At this precipitous rate, it didn’t take long for lawsuits to start bubbling up. Following a cratering of that magnitude, shareholders filed a pair of lawsuits against Zynga, accusing the company of failing to warn about declines in user and revenue growth ahead of last week’s surprisingly weak results. The California suits are seeking class-action status, Reuters reports.

The appointment of Marissa Mayer as CEO of Yahoo earlier today was a definitively splashy move by the board of the troubled Internet giant.

And a key impresario of the showy hiring of the high-profile Google exec? None other than Yahoo’s former foe now turned driving force Daniel Loeb of the Third Point hedge fund.

It was classic Loeb style — brash, quick and done with an eye to the optics of the move as well as its impact.

The selection of the high-profile Mayer was unanimous among the Yahoo directors, who have now clearly gone in a product direction over a media one, represented by interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.

The choice came down to Mayer or Levinsohn and, in this, there really was no choice to speak of given her much more honed tech and product pedigree.

Mayer was integral to the early days of Google especially, in charge for a long time over its search product. More recently, though, she had been working on local efforts.

But, it was notable to many inside and outside the company that she did not get one of the key senior vice president nods at Google in a major reorg of the company under new CEO Larry Page.

“She was pretty much voted off the island, even though she was critical to its earliest successes,” said one person close to the situation.

Recently, multiple sources said she had been quietly seeking an exit from the search giant, including considering several venture firms. She also recently joined the board of retail giant Walmart.

Loeb, who had met Mayer relatively recently, was one of the key forces in pushing the board to consider aiming for someone of her level.

In fact, multiple sources said that he has become an influential voice — perhaps the most influential — on the board. While there has been a search committee run by director David Kenny, Loeb has also been actively buttonholing prospects, including focusing his early CEO search efforts on Hulu’s Jason Kilar.

That did not pan out, as Kilar withdrew himself from contention, but sources said Loeb kept pushing for a big name who would burnish Yahoo’s bruised reputation.

It’s all part of a series of efforts by the New York hedge fund head — who has been spending a lot of time of late trying to learn the complicated byways of Silicon Valley — to be more than just a smash-and-grab money man.

Loeb now owns close to six percent of Yahoo and is intent on reviving its prospects and, more importantly, its moribund stock.

And nabbing Mayer — who often appears in glossy magazine spreads, part of an effort that she has promoted that has made her the face of the search giant over the last decade — fits into that strategy well.

Indeed, Mayer will now be charged with the difficult task of creating innovative products to win at Yahoo going forward and even competing with Google in some arenas.

It’s clear she will attract talent, and is reportedly considering several other current and former Googlers to bring on board at Yahoo.

It will take a lot of such deep expertise, given Yahoo’s dicey prospects of late, with problems ranging from its advertising technology to weak morale to, perhaps most importantly, the continued lack of a clear strategic direction.

Whether Mayer can stem the tide is unclear, with some comparing her task to an even bigger version of the massive challenges and slow turnaround another former Googler, Tim Armstrong, has faced at AOL.

“Is she the Tim show, part 2, or can she remake Yahoo into a successful narrative going forward?,” said one person close to the situation.

One thing’s for certain: Today, at least, it was also the Dan Loeb show.

Longtime Yahoo exec Raymond Stern (pictured here) — who seems to have fit into a lot of management reorgs in his short time at the Silicon Valley Internet giant — has been named to a new role at the company as SVP of strategy, corporate development and new ventures.

He’ll be reporting to CEO Scott Thompson, according to an internal memo I got sent by the people who send me internal memos from Yahoo. (A group, I might add, that is getting bigger by the day.)

When he got to Yahoo in late 2009, Stern had first been named SVP of North America partnerships and business development for Yahoo. He later had to also pinch-hit as its head of U.S. audience, mobile and local, after an exec left, before being named SVP of North America audience. Then, after another exec took over the audience job, he was back to business development and partnerships and also added the listings business to his portfolio. Then, Stern got mobile biz dev back, after another exec left.

Now, the man who has been the Swiss Army Knife of Yahoo will be the key strategy guy for Thompson, who clearly wants to do a lot of strategizing.

Interesting note: Stern was a former consultant to Boston Consulting Group, which is Thompson’s go-to outside team on his ongoing restructuring of the company. He is also a former Intuit exec.

As per usual, here is the internal memo on Stern’s appointment from Thompson, who is dealing with some other very thorny issues right now too:

Yahoos –

Over the last few months, you’ve heard me talk a lot about focusing our company around our core business. As part of this, we need to find new ways to strengthen, leverage, and monetize our core assets — all in conjunction with our long-term strategy focused on driving growth. To help tackle this challenge, I’m excited to announce that Raymond Stern will take on a new role at Yahoo! as senior vice president of strategy, corporate development, and new ventures, reporting to me.

For those of you who haven’t had the chance to meet Raymond over the last two and half years here at Yahoo!, he previously oversaw distribution partnerships and business development, as well as our Latin American, Canadian, and small business teams. Earlier in his career, he spent 10 years at the Boston Consulting Group, and later had various roles at Intuit including leading strategy and corporate development during a transformational period in the late 90s through the mid 2000s.

In his new role, Raymond will work across the teams to ensure alignment and that we are taking advantage of opportunities around the globe. He will lead three critical areas for us:

Strategy: Raymond will lead corporate strategy, working in close partnership with the senior leadership team and me.

Corporate Development: Raymond will work with the team to find opportunities to accelerate our progress and growth through acquisitions, investments and strategic partnerships. In conjunction with this, Marcus Shen and his group will be renamed corporate M&A, and will continue to be the transactional execution arm supporting Yahoo!’s corporate development initiatives.

New Ventures: Raymond will look at emerging areas outside of what’s happening in the halls of Yahoo! and bring new innovative and disruptive ideas to the forefront.

In the coming weeks, you’ll hear more from Raymond as he works with the leadership team to align our corporate priorities and long-term strategy.

Please join me in welcoming Raymond to this important new role.

/signed
/Scott Thompson

And here’s to your new job, Raymond:

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson just sent this email to Yahoo employees, about a new leadership organization for the company.

“It’s time for Yahoo! to move forward, and fast,” wrote Thompson (using punctuation I really like, with nice comma deployment). “And as we do, I want every one of us to keep one thing top of mind: what we do is about our customers, not about us.”

The core groups will essentially be media, connections and commerce, led by Ross Levinsohn, Shashi Seth and person to be determined (but I hear it is newly departed PayPal exec Sam Shraugher).

And, as previously reported here: Sales is off by itself, split into regions; ad technology is off to the side, pending sale; corporate and operations remain the same; and the central product organization is blown up and moves back into the units.

I’d go into more deets, but it is all below and tracks on numerous reports I have done, including this morning.

But please enjoy the memo, which Yahoos will be chewing over at an all-hands meeting later this morning:

Yahoos –

It’s time for Yahoo! to move forward, and fast. And as we do, I want every one of us to keep one thing top of mind: what we do is about our customers, not about us. For Yahoo! to win in our core business, every one of us must put our customers first. Specifically, we must focus all we do on the users who trust us to give them personalized content and communications, and the advertisers who want to connect with our users. To be very clear, our highest priority is winning in our core business and that will earn us the right to pursue new growth opportunities.

To accomplish that we’re establishing a new leadership structure, organizing all of our activities around Yahoo!’s customers. Effective May 1, Yahoo! will operate in three groups — Consumer, Regions and Technology — all supported by our established Corporate teams. Each of the three groups will be charged with delivering the best customer experiences and have very clear accountability for getting results.

Our new Consumer group will be all about creating great, engaging user experiences. Our geographic Regions will serve our advertisers and agencies and be accountable for all Yahoo! revenue. Our Technology teams will provide the advanced infrastructure, technology and science to enable our Consumer group and the Regions to deliver our best products and experiences into market, at scale, and fast.

Consumer

Our success is determined by how well we engage consumers and give them fun and informative experiences that they feel were designed just for them, on all screens. Our Consumer group will include three units — Media, Connections, and Commerce — and each will provide users the uniquely relevant and personalized content and services they expect and deserve, leveraging Yahoo!’s vast consumer interest data. We will redouble our focus on Yahoo!’s competitive advantage — our core, owned and operated (O&O) consumer properties. And importantly, we are bringing dedicated product engineering resources into each unit, much closer to our users.

• Media Our online media presence has long been our company’s clearest competitive advantage. Our Media group, led by Ross Levinsohn, will include all our media businesses globally with our marquee properties at the forefront: Homepage, News, Finance, Sports, and Entertainment. We will bring top design and engineering talent and differentiated technology — like Yahoo!’s Publishing Platform (YPP) — into close partnership with content producers and editors. Ross and his team will continue to drive real differentiation into our leading media experiences, including everything from our original coverage of breaking news events to tentpole events like the Royal Wedding and the upcoming Olympics and US Elections.

• Connections will be led by Shashi Seth, and include consumer businesses that connect and inform our users including Search, Communications and Social properties such as Mail, Messenger, Flickr, Answers, and more. The highest priority for Shashi and his team will be to think well beyond how users search, communicate and share online today. The Connections team is charged with fundamentally re-imagining how we design and deliver the next generation of these foundational Yahoo! experiences.

• Commerce We will renew our focus on commerce, and I expect this newly created team to play a critical role in Yahoo!’s future growth. Our Commerce teams will build on Yahoo!’s massive reach and strong consumer relationships, but their charter will go beyond traditional ecommerce. The focus of this team will be driving higher ROI for advertisers and agencies that reach users on Yahoo! by closing the loop for them between user interests, advertiser spend, consumer intent, and purchase behavior. The foundation of the new Commerce group will be Autos, Shopping, Travel, Jobs, Personals and Real Estate. We expect to name the leadership of this business unit shortly.

Regions

Advertisers and agencies are the primary customers and focus for each of our three regions. Our regional sales teams will be the advocate and voice for our advertising customers: listening to them and driving their needs into the products we develop. Regional sales must bring urgency and tenacious sales execution to all we do for advertisers. In addition, these teams will leverage our unique and vast data resources to position Yahoo! as the place to connect with users and generate the best, measurable ROI on their ad spend.

• Americas will be led by Rich Riley, who led the team responsible for extraordinary strides in EMEA in recent years putting the region on a path of consistent engagement and revenue growth, as well as meaningful market share and profit gains. Rich will be moving from Europe to our New York office soon.

• APAC, which includes many of our fastest-growing countries and strongest consumer products, will continue under the exceptional leadership of Rose Tsou.
• EMEA will be led on an interim basis by Christophe Parcot, EMEA’s regional sales leader, as we commence the search for a new leader for the region.

Americas, EMEA, and APAC will be fully accountable for Yahoo!’s revenue in their respective regions. I expect our Regional leaders and teams to work in very close collaboration with Ross and our other Consumer group leaders to fully align their goals for revenue and engagement as well as their execution, keeping our users and advertisers top of mind.

Technology

Our Consumer group and the Regions will continue to be supported by some of the most talented technology professionals in the industry, providing the advanced platforms and technology that allow Yahoo! to deliver great customer products.

• Core Platforms, led by Mark Morrissey, will provide the foundational platforms, technology, and research to enable great customer products and leverage Yahoo!’s vast data stores to enable deep personalization and optimized monetization. Mark’s teams will lead Apt, RMX, User Data & Analytics, our content optimization relevance engine (CORE), Yahoo! Labs and other key technology functions.

• Central Technology will continue to be led by David Dibble and include our data center and service engineering efforts, as well as our cloud infrastructure teams.

Yahoo! has made real progress in building modern, scalable platforms and infrastructure, but to move at the rapid pace our customers and our industry require we need more than scalable technology. This is among the most important changes we’re making: we must bring some of our best product designers and engineers much, much closer to consumer needs and demands. Many of our top engineers will continue building on our foundation platforms and technology to continue to drive speed and scale. But to ensure we really know and can serve our customers, we’ll also deploy top design and engineering talent into our Consumer business units, directly supporting our users’ favorite Yahoo! products to ensure we move much faster and meet customer needs with every product we deliver.

Corporate

Our major corporate functions will continue to support these new groups. Finance, Legal, and HR will remain under the strong leadership of CFO Tim Morse, General Counsel Mike Callahan, and Chief HR Officer David Windley, respectively. As we search for a Chief Marketing Officer, Penny Baldwin will serve as interim leader for the Corporate Marketing and Communications teams. John Kremer will lead a newly-created Transformation team that will ensure full implementation of and accountability for our restructuring and related organizational changes.

Chief Product Officer Blake Irving has decided to leave Yahoo! and will work closely with the new leaders over the next several weeks to ensure a smooth transition. He has made a tremendous contribution to the advancement of Yahoo!’s product strategy and execution over the last two years and I know you will join me in wishing him all the best in the future.

You will hear more from our business leaders about their plans to move each of these groups forward in the coming days and weeks. As we look to Yahoo!’s future, all of us must remember to always keep our customers first in everything we do. Ultimately, only our customers will decide whether we win or lose in the market.

I look forward to speaking with you at our All Hands Tuesday. If you have questions before we meet, please check Backyard for information and answers. If you don’t see the answers you need, please post questions on Backyard, or you may email questions directly to the leadership team.

Scott

HP Shares closed down 52 cents to $23.46 a share, representing a drop of 2.17 percent in the wake of the official announcement of the plan, which AllThingsD reported yesterday.

While, on its face, the combination of the PC and printer groups into a single operation would save some operational costs, investors seem unconvinced that the move will make a sufficient difference to get the company moving in the right direction as CEO Meg Whitman has promised to do, though she’s conceded the turnaround will likely take years.

At least one analyst summed up the negative sentiment around the reorg. Rob Cihra of Evercore Partners called the move “uninspiring” and reminded everyone that HP made a similar move under former CEO Carly Fiorina back in early 2005 toward the end of her tenure. Her successor, Mark Hurd, broke the groups apart again before the year was out.

One thing Cihra appreciates is that Whitman is willing to admit where the troubles are: An over-levered balance sheet and a printing business that is suffering through a fundamental — not a seasonal — decline, among other problems. But, he writes in a research note issued to clients today, admitting the problem is only the first step. “It is encouraging for new CEO Meg Whitman to have started admitting issues others wouldn’t … Our concern is that any fixes look far from easy and likely involve a marathon, while ‘reorgs’ don’t even get HP to the starting line, in our view,” he wrote. Given the drop in HP’s share price, investors, for now, seem to agree.

In fairness to Whitman, she’s only six months into the job, and today’s move is only a first step. But the first step is pretty much an admission that a bigger change is on the way, including job cuts. “Everything is on the table,” Whitman told The Wall Street Journal today, though she declined to speculate on the number of jobs that might be eliminated. It’s going to be a rocky year at HP.

Yahoo’s massive product unit is readying a major reorganization, which will include a new structure, a move that is being spearheaded by its Chief Product Officer, Blake Irving.

But the ground under Irving, as well as several of the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s top execs, is about to get shakier too, due to a wide range of changes now being plotted by newly installed CEO Scott Thompson.

While still in the early stages of formulation, sources said Thompson has been mulling bringing in a head of global advertising sales or revenue chief, as well as more top product execs, as he moves to initiate a plan to shake up Yahoo and also put his own stamp on the company.

Layoffs and possible wholesale abandonment of certain businesses Yahoo is currently in are likely to be parts of this larger plan.

Confused yet? So am I, but let’s sort through all the latest activity.

First, there’s the Yahoo product redo, which has been in the making for a while, well before Thompson arrived last month.

Under the new plan, which is described as “an evolution rather than blowing up the place,” Yahoo’s famously matrixed product unit could be split into three distinct areas: Monetization, which is expected to be headed by longtime exec Mark Morrissey; platform, with cloud dude Jay Rossiter in charge; and consumer-facing products, possibly in the hands of search kingpin Shashi Seth.

The idea behind the latest setup, presumably, is to spur innovation and make it easier for Yahoo to spit out products more quickly. Its recent Livestand tablet app, for example, was late to the game and continues to struggle to gain any real ground, said sources.

Overall, Yahoo still continues to lag behind other Internet rivals in a number of product arenas, for reasons that Thompson is delving into.

The way products are made got a long look-see this past week, in a day-long meeting that Thompson had with Yahoo’s top team execs. Thompson reportedly quizzed the group on its plans, and pressed it to look less at short-term features and maintenance than on finding the next great thing.

“I think it’s fair to say that Scott is wondering why Yahoo did not come up with innovations like Pinterest and Instagram,” said one person about hot new start-ups that are in the sweet spot of Yahoo’s business. “Or, at the very least, why it did not even try to buy them.”

That’s why Thompson, with the help of board members, including David Kenny, has been on the hunt for new talent for Yahoo. That includes a search that is on for a new head of marketing, too.

Thompson has been doing the same kind of assessment with Yahoo’s media and advertising execs, who include Americas head Ross Levinsohn, as well as Asia’s Rose Tsou, and Rich Riley, who heads its efforts in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Sources said he believes that Yahoo might need a head of global sales or a chief of revenue to better organize and align its key advertising business. Ad revenues now make up a bulk of Yahoo’s business.

As Thompson has said numerous times publicly since he came on board, he is seeking to diversify that revenue, focusing on new businesses and also goosing non-ad ones already performing well. In Asia, for example, Yahoo has a robust online commerce business in comparison to other regions.

“Yahoo has to slim down and focus in some ways and bulk up in others,” said another source.

Of course, all of this might be moot, depending on how activist shareholder Daniel Loeb, who is prepping his own frontal attack on making changes at Yahoo, decides to move. According to sources, Loeb is assembling his own slate and trying to garner support from other shareholders, in hopes of further improving the value of his more than five percent stake.

What form that will take is unclear, but it’s not completely friendly at the moment.

In addition, Yahoo execs and its board are trying to wrap up a deal to sell off parts of its Asian assets in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan, part of a massive arrangement that could bring many billions of dollars of assets and cash into the core company that is left.

Which could then make Yahoo more able to compete, and give Thompson a war chest to do so — or make it an even tastier treat for a wide range of outside investors looking for a deal.

Like I said: Confused yet?

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment.

After the departure of top Yahoo advertising sales exec Seth Dallaire, who decamped to Amazon this week, Yahoo did a little reorganization of its U.S. sales team.

(I promise to stop with the LOLcat images after this one for a while, but it is purrfect.)

Rather than go into the deets, you can just read the internal memo on it from Wayne Powers, SVP of advertising sales for North America:

Team:

These first few weeks of the year have been a phenomenal showing of Yahoo! pride and a clear display of the opportunities we’re poised to capitalize on this year.

In discussions with executives from our 100+ meetings with some of our largest advertisers, agencies, and holding companies at CES, it’s clear we’re changing the dialogue by having a consistent go-to-market strategy: Premium Content Experiences, at Scale, Across Screens; by listening to and engaging with our clients in meaningful ways; and by focusing on digital media and innovation. We were given the top performance rating by one of our Global Agency partners — out of the five media publishers they met with, we were ranked number one based on our continued commitment to providing clarity and consistency in strategy and to strengthening our partnership. Great work everyone!

With that context, there are some changes that I want to announce effective today. Seth Dallaire is leaving Yahoo! to run North American Sales at Amazon. While it’s never easy losing great people, we’re fortunate that he has a very talented team that will carry on the focus and momentum. Please join me in wishing him continued success!

As part of this transition, Mark Ellis will expand his role to take on leadership of the Global Agency and Client Partnership teams. He will continue to lead North American Field Sales.

I’m excited to announce that Peter Foster will to take on leadership duties and will serve as the lead for our partnership with AOL and Microsoft, Interclick, mid-market display, mid-market acquisition sales, and the Channel Reseller team, reporting to me. Peter joined us as part of the acquisition of 5:1 where he served as Chief Revenue Officer, and has a long career in the industry. He previously was SVP sales at ValueClick/Fastclick, one of the biggest ad networks in the world, oversaw revenue at Photobucket after it was acquired by News Corporation, was an early pioneer in the monetization space at L90, and held senior revenue posts at Kosmix and Hi5.

I’m also excited to announce that Marc Grabowski will take on an expanded role and now will head the combined Interclick and mid market sales teams. As part of this new team, Michael Katz, the CEO of Interclick, will lead all sales operations and data and performance optimization for the combined teams. Both Marc and Michael will report to Peter.

We are fortunate to have such a talented team here at Yahoo!. Ross and I are confident that Peter, Mark, and Michael will lead our efforts to change the conversation in this space and industry.

I want to thank everyone for their continued hard work and dedication. We have a great team and a lot to be excited about. We continue to hear feedback from the agencies and clients about our progress, so let’s keep up the focus and energy and deliver on our goals! Please let me or your managers know if you have any questions.

–Wayne

Facebook confirmed our report that it has reorganized its technical teams around key product areas, naming Bret Taylor, Chris Cox, Greg Badros, Mike Schroepfer and Sam Lessin as leaders of product groups reporting to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

So who are these newly elevated execs and what are the details of their new roles?

Sources said the company is still figuring out what to officially do about shuffling the five mens’ titles. Currently, its public-facing management page remains unchanged and a press release is nowhere to be found.

Facebook seems to be trying to get the most out of every last second it has as a private company, not revealing important bits of information. That includes which person is assigned to which product area, and even what those product areas are.

If Facebook PR wants to get all cryptic about it, that won’t stop AllThingsD.com! (We’re like the War Operations Plan Response (W.O.P.R.) computer in “WarGames” — soon we’ll have all the launch code numbers and let loose the missiles.)

Before that, the first and most important thing to remember is that CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg remains the king of product power at Facebook. It all rolls up to him, seated at the dead center around which all these new spokes turn.

Of the new arrangement, what’s also key to keep in mind, as one source aptly describes it, is that this is a ”verticalization” of Facebook, which had largely been horizontal before, with top execs covering a wider range of areas.

Now, it is more siloed and — presumably — more nimble, with more powerful lords of product areas in charge.

That’s a lot like the management rejiggering Google has done recently under its aggressive new CEO and co-founder Larry Page, although Facebook’s slicing and dicing seems to be more a matter of addressing internal growth and making the organization more functional.

Here’s the rundown that we have pieced together so far:

Privacy and Identity — a critical area for Facebook, since it seems to have an ongoing issue with it (or lack thereof) — will go to Lessin.

Communications and Apps — the real guts of the product — will get the leadership of Cox.

Infrastructure — the nuts and bolts of keeping the global megopolis of Facebook humming — will be the purview of Schroepfer.

Mobile and Platform — the big forward-looking areas — will be run by Taylor.

And Monetization — which includes advertising products and will pay for this whole shebang — will come under the sway of Badros.

But, until all is revealed by the social networking giant, here are some details of the newly named product potentates of Facebook — all men, it should be noted — you might want to know about:

Bret Taylor: As was previously reported here, Taylor is currently leading Facebook’s “Buffy” phone project, which is its HTML5-oriented smartphone effort.

Taylor was named Facebook CTO in June 2010 and has historically had no direct reports. His projects at Facebook have included platform, search, News Feed and mobile.

Taylor is a consistent presence at Facebook’s big public events. Even though he presents about technical stuff, his delivery is considered by many observers inside and outside the company as much smoother than his often awkward boss, CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Prior to Facebook, Taylor co-founded FriendFeed, a geeky social app aggregator bought by Facebook; the app’s influence is seen in many of Facebook’s social products today. Prior to that, while at Google he helped create Google Maps.

Taylor has a young family and is a really big Stanford football fan.

Chris Cox: Chris Cox is Facebook’s well-liked product head and the company’s only real home-grown management star. He joined Facebook in 2005, shortly after graduating from Stanford, and has worked on products such as News Feed early on in their gestation. At one point as a young staffer, he was promoted to be in charge of Facebook’s human resources and helped set a tone for the company’s culture.

Cox often appears at Facebook events to talk about the human impact of Facebook’s products, and the merits of “social design.”

The charismatic exec got married this year and has played in a reggae band.

Greg Badros: Outsiders have been less familiar with Greg Badros. Badros had been in charge of advertising engineering at Facebook for the past two years.

Prior to joining Facebook in June 2009, Badros worked at Google for six years, where he was particularly instrumental on its well-known AdSense and Gmail products.

“Star” is the word multiple of Badros’s acquaintances and former colleagues used to describe him.

Badros is technical, entrepreneurial, articulate and humble, said former Keval Desai, his Google colleague and current VC at Interwest Partners.

“He can speak to a crowd of engineers and sales people with equal ease,” he said. “He was a star at Google and instrumental in scaling the AdSense platform.”

Badros has a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and did his undergrad at Duke.

Mike Schroepfer: Along with Cox and Taylor, Schroepfer has been at the top of Facebook’s org for a while as VP of engineering.

Schroepfer, who’s known internally and externally as Schrep, was previously VP of engineering at Mozilla and, before that, at Sun Microsystems.

He’s recently done a bunch of traveling with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to encourage women in tech and to open Facebook’s New York engineering office.

The affable exec also has a young family and just bought a Nissan Leaf.

Sam Lessin: The most recent addition of the group to Facebook, Lessin joined last October when Facebook nominally acquired his start-up Drop.io. Along with other “acqhired” CEOs, he has been influential within Facebook as a product manager.

Lessin was the major driver of Facebook’s upcoming Timeline redesign, which makes users’ profiles into visual journals of their lives. Timeline has not rolled out as soon as Facebook said it would, but it’s a major ongoing project that it seems natural for Lessin to continue to lead.

While still at Drop.io, he started a side project called letter.ly for paid personal email newsletters. Before that, he worked at Bain & Company.

Lessin went to Harvard at the same time as Zuckerberg and seems to be tightly integrated into the inner Facebook social circle. He recently became engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Wall Street Journal tech reporter Jessica Vascellaro.

(Full disclosure: Dow Jones owns both The Wall Street Journal and AllThingsD.com. Dow Jones is owned by News Corp.)

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in Liz’s ethics statement.

Here’s the statement:

“We can confirm that in order to streamline the product development process, we have reorganized our technical teams into product groups that report into Mark. These groups will be lead by Bret Taylor, Chris Cox, Greg Badros, Mike Schroepfer and Sam Lessin.”

As I wrote last night:

Facebook has done a major corporate reorganization in an effort to be more nimble, sources said.

The new structure integrates design, product and engineering teams around key product areas such as privacy and communication.

We’ll have more details as we get them.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

(Image credit: Flickr user Scr47chy)

The new structure integrates design, product and engineering teams around key product areas such as privacy and communication.

A memo about the reorg was sent out at the company today. A representative for Facebook declined to comment.

We’ll update as we learn more.

The young company, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, had many management shake-ups in its early years, but recently it has been fairly stable at the top.

However, Facebook faces increased competition and scrutiny, as well as a looming expected IPO.

You have to see the parallel with what Larry Page did at Google earlier this year, shortly after retaking the reins as CEO. Page created seven integrated product areas from what had previously been separate engineering and product management groups: Chrome, social, Android, YouTube, knowledge, ads and commerce, and local.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Jonathan Rosenberg said his resignation from Google yesterday was precipitated by Larry Page’s return as CEO, but unrelated to Page’s effort to restore the urgency of innovation and nimbleness that was once the company’s hallmark.

And that may well be the case.

Certainly, Rosenberg has been crucial to Google’s success, so his exit has come as a shock to pretty much everyone to whom I’ve spoken.

That said, its timing seems quite convenient, particularly in relationship to what looks very much like a significant reorg that is currently underway at Google, said sources familiar with the situation.

Note first that Rosenberg’s replacement wasn’t immediately named and it’s not clear whether Page even feels one is needed.

But sources close to the company tell me it is likely to be much more than just Rosenberg’s departure.

The main theme that seems to be emerging: An elimination of Google’s more centralized functional structure–where Rosenberg was one of several manager kingpins–to one in which the individual business units and their engineers, such as its most independent Android division, rule more autonomously.

Reimagined like this, Google would become an ambidextrous organization with more powerful unit line execs, mostly engineers, doing what needs to be done to succeed, less burdened by the need to vet every little effort through various managers of Google’s powerful operating committee.

And that might mean fewer of those centralized execs–which raises the question of which general manager is next to go, whether on their own volition or not.

There is much speculation within Google about this, and it will surely increase now with the departure of Rosenberg.

The up and down fate of certain execs will be important signs of what’s coming, especially that of Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora, Business Operations SVP Shona Brown and David Drummond, SVP of corporate development and chief legal officer.

So too the execs running business units at Google. Even now, for example, YouTube operates somewhat independently from the main part of Google. The question is, can such an engineering-driven structure be applied to local, social, commerce and more?

The goal, of course, is laudable–for Google to have significantly less bureaucracy and a more consistent stream of innovation.

But is this a good idea?

Looking at the company’s Android unit, the answer would appear to be a resounding yes. Under Andy Rubin, the Android team has developed its own structure and processes and it’s excelling in the market. Google’s role here is more nurturing parent than anything else. In other words, it’s supporting innovation, not micromanaging it.

That jibes well with Page’s push to whittle down Google’s manager bureaucracy, eliminate politicking and rekindle its start-up spirit.

And it also offers the added benefit of making him the centerpoint of the entire company.

Because make no mistake, these autonomous divisions under discussion would all have one thing in common: Larry Page.

In other words: He’s the CEO, functionary!

In essence, he would be their Lord High Engineer (and Executioner, in all senses) and their connection to the rest of the organization.

Which puts him in a very Steve Jobsian position, in which he’s the company’s one true arbiter.

That’s worked out well for Apple, but its culture is very different from Google’s. And Page and Jobs are as dissimilar as they come.

That said, if Page’s vision of a new, ambidextrous Google fosters the same sort of incremental and radical innovations we’ve seen come out of Apple in the past decade, that would probably be a good change.

Because change is just what Google so needs–and it seems it has begun.

In the wake of the departures of two top ad execs to social buying sites, the hiring of another from AOL and a whole new sales management team in place, it’s got to be time for a reorg at Yahoo!

And so it is.

Below is an internal memo from Yahoo’s head of U.S. ad sales Wayne Powers–who was hired in November–about changes in the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s key advertising unit.

The changes come in time for Yahoo’s global ad sales meeting, taking place in San Antonio, Texas next week.

The theme of this year’s event is “The Race Is On,” sources said, which BoomTown does not exactly grok.

Who is Yahoo racing? Does it have a fast car to do so? And is it an amazing race or just meh?

Sources tell me that, unlike at previous such confabs, there will be no big names speaking, with a focus instead on the basics of sales training and operations.

More interesting: Apparently, there are no phones allowed and violators will get their wrists slapped.

Obviously, you ad sales people will have to leak to me via carrier pigeon.

In all seriousness, it will be an important gathering as Yahoo seeks to revitalize its sales team, which has seen a spate of management changes recently.

Most recently, two longtime sales execs have left–Lee Brown to Groupon and Mitch Spolan to LivingSocial–while former AOLer Mark Ellis joined.

Here’s the rest of the mishegas via the memo:

From: Wayne Powers
To: XXX@yahoo-inc.com
Cc: Carol Bartz
Cc: Ross Levinsohn
Cc: Blake Irving
Cc: Elisa Steele
Cc: Tim Morse
Cc: David Windley
Cc: Rich Jacquet
Cc: Rose Tsou
Cc: Wayne Powers
Cc: Christophe PARCOT
Cc: Susanna Lee
Cc: Linda Lubsen
Cc: May Petry
Cc: Tekeita Lodge
Cc: Zealous Wiley

Subject: Organization Announcement

Sent: Mar 8, 2011 3:01 PM

Team,

As we evolve our best-in-class sales organization, I would like to make two key organizational announcements. I am pleased to announce that Liz Ritzcovan will be joining Yahoo! as vice president of Marketing Solutions, leading our Sales Development organization. I am equally excited to announce the promotion of long time Yahoo!, Andrea Morokutti, to vice president of Sales Operations and Strategy.

Liz was most recently vice president, Corporate Sales and Client Services, Digital at Time, Inc. where she led all media efforts and oversaw strategic digital planning processes in coordination with Time Inc, Amex Publishing and Time Warner Broadcast. Along with her team, she was focused on developing and forging sales and marketing partnerships to ensure broad distribution and effective media planning for Time’s corporate and brand partners.

Liz brings an impressive history increasing profits and expanding client and partner bases for various organizations ranging from entrepreneurial start-ups to leading multi-billion dollar global corporations. Prior to joining Yahoo! she held various leadership positions at Interbrand, CondeNast and Miller Publishing. Her expertise in print, digital, broadcast and emerging media strategy and new advertising models will be a tremendous asset to the organization. Liz has a B.A. from University of New York at Potsdam. Liz will be starting later this month and will be based in New York. She will also be at the sales conference and is looking forward to meeting many of you.

With nearly 11 years under her belt at Yahoo!, Andrea’s most recent role has been vice president of Demand Ops Finance in the Americas Region under Mark Liao. Prior to that, Andrea held various leadership positions within finance, including support of the CMO organization, Mobile and Corporate. With Andrea’s solid expertise in finance and business strategy, this new role was a natural progression for her and we excited to have her join the team. Andrea will continue to be based in Sunnyvale.

Both Liz and Andrea will report directly to me. Frank Weishaupt will continue to lead our North America Region Ad Marketplaces organization. And I’d like to thank him for his leadership of the Sales Development and Operations organizations over the last nine months.

Please join me in welcoming Andrea to the team and Liz to Yahoo!.

On a related note, Mark Ellis started last week and is up and running. He’s hitting the road and spending time meeting clients and Yahoos. Look out for him next week at the sales conference.

I’d like to thank Mitch for his many years of service at Yahoo! and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.

Wayne

The company hasn’t named a successor to Chubb, who spent the last year or so working on a homegrown platform for publishing the company’s magazines for Apple’s iPad and other tablets. Condé eventually decided to work with Adobe, an approach championed by Wired magazine creative director Scott Dadich, who has since been put in charge of Condé’s tablet projects.

Chubb says she won’t be taking another full-time job immediately, but plans on doing some consulting work for the near term. Condé says it will announce a replacement soon.

Here’s the internal memo from Condé Nast president Bob Sauerberg:

From: Sauerberg, Bob
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 3:25 PM
To: Conde Nast – All
Subject: Executive Announcement

After a wonderful 20-year career at Condé Nast, Sarah Chubb has decided it’s time to explore other opportunities. As we all know, there is a huge amount of energy and excitement in the digital world right now—and Sarah is interested in pursuing the next phase of her career.

Sarah has been a transformational force at Condé Nast and the media business as a whole. I am sure you will all join me in thanking Sarah for her many valuable contributions, congratulating her on her success and wishing her the best of luck as she moves ahead.

Sarah asked me to share her thoughts with you: “CN is the premier company in the industry and I have truly loved my job here. I am also tremendously proud of the contributions that my team and I have made to the Company. While the challenges of an exciting new world beckon me, I know that CN is set up exceptionally well for the future.”

In the coming weeks, we will name a successor to continue the outstanding work in digital growth and innovation.

Yahoo confirmed the move by Zinman (pictured here), after an inquiry by BoomTown, in a statement:

“David Zinman, Vice President & GM, Display Marketplace at Yahoo! has decided to leave the company, effective January 11. He’ll be working very closely with James Beriker, the former CEO of Dapper, who will take on David’s position, to ensure a smooth transition and build upon Yahoo!’s leadership position in display advertising.”

A source close to the company said the move was not part of a reorganization about to take place of the critical U.S. advertising unit by its new leader, Americas EVP Ross Levinsohn.

Levinsohn, who came to Yahoo in late fall, is now prepping a rejiggering of this management team, much as Chief Product Officer Blake Irving did soon after he arrived last April.

Unlike Irving’s, which included a number of significant exec departures, Levinsohn’s new structure is not expected to be as drastic, nor will it involve the massive layoffs that took place in the product unit in December.

Levinsohn, according to numerous sources inside the Silicon Valley company, seems to be off to a good start there, with many considering the fast-talking exec a “breath of fresh air.”

Or, perhaps, breath of hair.

Apropos of nothing, pretty much everyone I spoke to about his performance thus far comments on his very bouncy and behaving mane.

They are lovely locks, as I can attest, and as you can see here.

So, let’s hope Levinsohn can grow Yahoo’s stagnant revenue as well as he does his tresses.

Sorry, folks, but–despite reports–Yahoo will not be unveiling another new organizational structure this week.

In actuality, the beleaguered Internet giant is just cleaning up from last week’s shake-up–in which it announced that a chunk of its top media and sales leadership was leaving–as well as settling in new hires made in recent months by its relatively new product head, Blake Irving.

In fact, those changes in Irving’s unit have resulted in the departure of two more execs. That would be former SVP of Media Products and Solutions Jeff Kinder and SVP for Cloud Computing Shelton Shugar, who are on their way out.

Kinder actually left his job many weeks ago and was offered the chance to find another within Yahoo (YHOO), although sources said he has now definitely decided to leave the company on his own.

CEO Carol Bartz held a meeting Friday with senior leadership to go over the situation and to assure management that changes to come would stabilize the company going forward.

To be sure, Yahoo needs some kind of reassurance and fast.

BoomTown broke the news last week that U.S. head Hilary Schneider was departing the company (see her goodbye memo below), along with U.S. Audience head David Ko and SVP of Media Jimmy Pitaro.

Pitaro has since landed a big job as co-president of the Internet unit of Disney (DIS).

The overall corporate turmoil has put more scrutiny on Bartz. For two years, she has been trying to turn around the company, with only a modicum of success.

While Bartz did strike a search and online advertising partnership with Microsoft (MSFT) to better battle Google (GOOG), she has not goosed flat revenue nor been able to boost Yahoo’s moribund stock.

Perhaps more critically, she has not stopped the steady exodus of talent, especially of more senior execs.

Departures in the last six months include U.S. advertising sales head Joanne Bradford, Integrated Consumer Experiences SVP Tapan Bhat, CTO Ari Balogh, as well as the heads of its social platform and communications product units.

But last week’s departure trifecta of the execs running Yahoo’s powerful and successful media unit drove the talent drain issue home for many investors and other observers.

While each departure case was different, of course, the leavings have lent a feeling of instability inside and outside the company.

That has happened more quietly over the several months of reshuffling by Irving (pictured here), who came to Yahoo from Microsoft, and which I have reported on here previously several times.

For example, in September, Irving hired Microsoft exec John Matheny to head the communications products and communities unit.

Previous to that, in July, Irving brought in another old colleague from the software giant–Bill Shaughnessy–as SVP of Product Management.

Thus, Irving–who is a little too busy traveling to a number of Yahoo product and technology units in Asia and India over the next weeks to announce yet another reorg–has pretty much already moved his part of the business around, although there are likely to be some more hires to come.

It is not unusual for a new senior exec to do this, of course, but Irving’s many moves reportedly sparked some tension between him and Schneider.

That might have been moot, since she had decided to leave some months ago, but was asked to stay on by Bartz.

To be sure, in recent months, many sources said that their relationship had become strained too as Yahoo ad sales continue to struggle, and they also disagreed on the company’s strategic direction.

Still, it should be noted that Schneider is staying on until a new exec is named to replace her.

Whatever the various machinations in the corporate suite at Yahoo, Bartz needs to find a way to convince Wall Street that she still has the ability to complete her much touted turnaround of the Silicon Valley pioneer to a new period of growth and innovation.

How quickly she is doing that will come into sharp relief in a few weeks when Yahoo reports its third-quarter earnings on October 19.

And while executive departures garner a lot of attention, that is the bottom line for Yahoo, the thing most important of all to watch.

Finally, given I love a good internal memo, here is, belatedly, the email that Schneider sent to her staff last week about her leaving:

Team,

I’m sure by now you’ve all had a chance to read Carol’s note, and know that I made the decision to move on to the next stage of my career. When I joined Yahoo! four years ago, I knew it would be an amazing and rich experience…and it has exceeded every expectation. Our consumers look to Yahoo! as they navigate their lives, our advertisers look to Yahoo! for leadership, and publisher looks to Yahoo! for our amazing scale and reach. Our team, however, is our secret weapon!

Meanwhile, the search for my successor is under way and I will continue to lead our team until we make the transition.

Additionally. David Ko, SVP of Audience and Mobile, and Jimmy Pitaro, VP of North America Media, have decided to leave Yahoo! David and Jimmy are amazing leaders and we will miss them. Yahoo!’s leadership positions in Sports, News, Entertainment, Finance and Mobile are their legacy that we have to proudly continue.

Raymond Stern will be the SVP of North America Audience and will be responsible for the Audience teams. Raymond has been an integral part of Americas leadership team as the SVP of Business Development and Partnerships. Before joining Yahoo! a year ago, he held a wide range of business leadership positions, including more than 10 years as a Partner the Boston Consulting Group where he ran the Technology and Media Practice on the west coast. He also held senior leadership roles at Intuit, including CMO.

Raymond will immediately start diving in to the Audience business, and David and Jimmy are committed to working with Raymond through the transition. Right now, Raymond will continue overseeing the business development and partnership teams while we think through the best structure for these teams moving forward.

I know that transitions can create swirl–but our customers, both consumer and marketers, are looking to us for continued leadership…and I know we can deliver this.

You are Yahoo!’s magic, and I thank you for your tremendous commitment, leadership, and support.

Hilary

Here’s how Yahoo’s top brass and board–with the help of its newly re-engaged crisis-management PR firm, Abernathy MacGregor–are already trying to spin the latest executive turmoil to hit the company:

Trashing those on the way out, to take focus off those remaining who have been just as responsible for driving the Internet icon and claiming that this is all part of yet another well-planned reorganization at Yahoo (YHOO).

Don’t believe most of it for a second. Some of it is corporate politics as usual, some of it rejiggering of events, some just not true at all.

After BoomTown’s scoop earlier today that Yahoo’s U.S. head Hilary Schneider, as well as Audience head David Ko and VP of Media Jimmy Pitaro, would be departing the company–all of which Yahoo is still planning to announce after the markets close on Friday–here comes this gem in a follow-up story in The Wall Street Journal:

“[Yahoo CEO Carol] Bartz, who joined Yahoo in January 2009, is in the midst of a turnaround effort. People familiar with the matter said she is removing the company’s old guard to assemble a new team.”

Let’s parse this ridonkulous spin-addled blame game, shall we?

Bartz is, in fact, the very person who picked all those execs for prime responsibility in her last reorg.

If they were so incompetent, why not dump them much quicker? After all, it’s not like the problems have not been mounting for months and months, with more and more talent taking off.

In addition, the exec exodus at Yahoo over the last year has been unrelenting and broad, encompassing way too many employees for her to act as if it were all planned and okay.

As to the “midst of a turnaround effort” canard that Bartz keeps insisting on, even comparing herself to Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Job’s epic journey to return that legendary company to health?

Um, we are deep in the second year of the Bartz regime, and there appears to be no iPod-like save in sight, and it’s a little long in the tooth to keep using the turnaround excuse for all that has not yet happened under her command.

Which is to say, stock with a pulse and real growth across all metrics, as Facebook and Google (GOOG), to name a few, are showing.

In addition, it was Bartz herself who handed over a lot of the responsibility for the revival of Yahoo to Schneider.

Which meant Schneider had to be thrown under the wheels of the bus in the Journal by dragging out a very old–and tangential to the much larger flat revenue crisis at Yahoo–newspaper deal as pretty wet cannon fodder:

“Ms. Schneider is leaving because officials haven’t been satisfied with her performance, according to people familiar with the matter. Ms. Schneider was responsible for a 2006 deal with industry group Newspaper Consortium, in which Yahoo sold ads for newspaper websites and print editions. The effort continues but has not met Yahoo’s expectations, according to a person close to the company.”

Memo to readers: “People familiar with the matter,” I am guessing, would be current Yahoo execs.

The fact of the matter is that there have been both critics and admirers of Schneider at Yahoo, which comes as no surprise for one of its top execs. Some consider her smart and canny, while others complain of indecisiveness and slowness to act.

And, she has definitely had some very big whiffs, including the newspaper consortium, but most especially not finding an ad sales chief to replace Joanne Bradford, who left in March, about which I gave her a hard time when a very squishy structure was announced.

And, right now, sources tell me, Yahoo’s upcoming quarterly report could be an even tougher one.

And that falls to Schneider, of course, who has been in charge of its many partnerships, as well as advertising sales across the key Americas region.

Perhaps good reason for an ouster, except I have been tracking Schneider’s status for many months now, since hearing from many sources–not her, ever, in case you wanted to know–that she had told Bartz she wanted out.

Maybe that is what began to sour the boss on Schneider. But to now suddenly call her performance poor seems unusual, especially when you can just as easily point to Yahoo’s disastrous and pricey marketing campaigns–it is definitely not You!–helmed by CMO Elisa Steele, which has failed to move the needle on key user metrics.

But she has a tight relationship with Bartz, so she’s all right, jack? I am dizzy from all the spinning.

In other words, execs make mistakes and there is a lot of blame to go around and–as the old saying goes–the buck really does stop with Bartz.

But, guess what? Perhaps it should be noted that Bartz has also misstepped badly of late by making a series of wild remarks that have seriously angered many partners and other companies in Silicon Valley.

And I have heard from countless and very significant investors, all of whom are deeply concerned about her tone and recent public comments.

Just ask Yahoo Japan’s Masayoshi Son. Or Alibaba’s Jack Ma in China. Or the fine folks over at Apple in Cupertino, Calif.

And, I can also report that several execs at Yahoo’s new search technology partner, Microsoft, are also increasingly alarmed. Said one to me yesterday: “It is becoming a little unsettling.”

I can say for certain that Ko, who will doubtlessly be the next to get dinged, left on his own motor, telling Bartz himself recently.

He was quickly followed by Pitaro, who, as I reported earlier this week, is headed to another big company. No matter what the spin, his departure is a big loss, as he is well-liked inside and outside the company.

Then Schneider rounded out the latest trio of execs to go.

Thus, sources said, Yahoo is about to go on the offense, which is the expected thing to do, ready to announce a plan to move most of the product organization under Chief Product Officer Blake Irving.

The former Microsoft (MSFT) online exec is as sharp as a tack, in my experience, and clearly an even sharper corporate player, recently bringing in a series of his old cohorts from the software giant to take over big jobs at Yahoo.

He’s obviously now won some version of a corporate power play, and is now in favor with Bartz. But that means he’s being handed the entire thing.

Apparently, Irving has told numerous people that he plans to “rip it all down” and streamline the whole organization.

More rearranging at the company that has moved around the corporate living room umpteenth times over the past several years? Except it is still essentially the same room and same house.

Okay, Irving should probably have his choice of where the sofa goes, but as one exec wisely told me tonight: “Yahoo needs to build great products, not have another reorg….It needs a win.”

Indeed, just as board member Eric Hippeau apparently said at a recent meeting to deal with the latest executive kerfuffle.

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock–who has presided over so many stumbles over the years that I have lost count–said to the room: “We need crisis management.”

Countered Hippeau, a longtime Internet exec who is now CEO of the Huffington Post: “What we need is revenue.”

Indeed. And innovation. And a vision. And, most of all, spin-free leadership.

This is just hitting the wires: Yet another restructuring of RealNetworks, complete with layoffs, office closures and a new organizational look.

The beleaguered Internet media software company, based in Seattle, is cutting 85 jobs, including a good chunk of its exec team, along with dumping some global offices. This means about $10 million in restructuring charges, said RealNetworks (RNWK) in a statement.

RealNetworks has been on a rocky road of late, including the departure of founder and longtime CEO Rob Glaser in January.

Here’s the official press release with all the reorg deets:

RealNetworks Reorganizes Business; Focuses on Growth Initiatives

SEATTLE–June 22, 2010–RealNetworks, Inc. (Nasdaq: RNWK) announced today a significant reorganization of its business and operational structure. The reorganization is a key milestone in Real’s execution of its previously announced strategy to simplify, restructure and grow.

Real has consolidated its Technology Products and Solutions and Media Software and Services business units and organized them into functional teams that represent product development, sales and marketing, and service delivery over a carrier-grade delivery platform.

“This reorganization marks a significant milestone in our transformation of RealNetworks,” said Bob Kimball, president and acting CEO of Real. “Restructuring RealNetworks into functional groups creates a far more efficient organization focused on developing great products that can be delivered through any of our distribution partners.”

As part of this reorganization, the company eliminated about 85 positions, including about 25% of its executive ranks. The new organizational structure is designed to reduce the spans and layers of management to create greater efficiency, teamwork and customer focus.

Real also reduced its office space in Europe, Asia and its Seattle headquarters. As a result of the reorganization and reduction in office space, Real expects to record restructuring charges of approximately $10 million for the quarter ending June 30, 2010. Of these charges, approximately $3 million is related to the reduction in force and approximately $7 million will be recorded as a loss on excess office facilities.

Gillespie’s old unit, the CBS Interactive News Group, has been folded into a group with the company’s “business brands,” including BNET and MoneyWatch. Greg Mason, who was running the business group, now oversees the whole thing.

This one is literally old news, since it was announced internally all the way back on Jan. 26. But as you may recall, tech and business outlets were under a government mandate that week not to write about anything that wasn’t related to what we then called the Apple (AAPL) tablet. (Remember those days?)

The move would be bigger news if it augured a bigger shake-up at CBS’s digital side, especially since CBS Interactive head Quincy Smith has finally left the company to open up his own M&A shop. But CBS spokeswoman Sarah Cain says that’s not the case.

In a few hours, we’ll get a better sense of how CNET has performed for CBS (CBS) since the company acquired it in a $1.8 billion deal in 2008. CBS is set to announce Q4 earnings shortly, and estimates range widely depending on which analyst you listen to. Anthony DiClemente of Barclays Capital, for instance, thinks Interactive revenue will increase 10 percent, while the unit’s earnings will decrease by 8.8 percent; the consensus calls for an increase of 31 percent and a 36.2 percent drop respectively.

Meanwhile, for completists: Here’s Interactive boss Neil Ashe’s announcement explaining Gillespie’s move and the subsequent changes.

From: Neil Ashe
To: CBSi-ALL
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 1:15 PM
Subject: Tech, News & Business Announcement

Team:

We begin 2010 in an exciting position. Our brands are growing, and we continue to attract huge audiences and many of the world’s largest advertisers. As we look to the future, our focus remains on creating great content and experiences for our users, and great marketing solutions for our customers.

To that end, we are making changes today that streamline our division by bringing two business units into one. Tech & News and Business will now operate as a single business unit led by Greg Mason. Dave Morris will directly manage the sales organization for this new business unit while remaining in his role as Chief Client Officer for CBS Interactive. Joe Gillespie will work closely with me, Greg and Dave on making this transition a success. He’ll be with us until the end of March, at which time he has decided to leave the company to pursue new opportunities and his other interests, including a new appointment to the board of Jinni.com.

The creation of this new business unit will let us capitalize on the combined power of some of our biggest and most influential brands including CNET, CBSNews.com, CBS MoneyWatch, BNET, ZDNet and TechRepublic. It will also allow us to create better alignment between properties like CBS MoneyWatch and CBSNews.com where there are natural synergies between the content and audiences. This is good for CBS Interactive, as well as CBS as a whole.

For our marketing partners, this change helps simplify how clients work with us.  Individually, each business unit has seen great success cross-pollinating content and selling programs. Combined, we have the ability to do even more of these types of programs, but even faster and on a much larger scale. Dave will work closely with the sales team to create programs that take advantage of the combined power of these leading brands.  And of course, Dave will continue to be our primary representative in the marketplace for CBS Interactive as a whole.

Those of you that have worked with Greg know that he has an incredible track record of building and operating world-class brands, and repeatedly transforming businesses into success stories. He joined CNET Networks in 2000 and was instrumental in rebuilding our business after the bubble burst. He helped lead the charge to launch the Messaging Plus ad units in 2001, which put CNET Networks on the map in terms of industry leadership and innovation. From 2004-2007 Greg led CNET Content Solutions, which he transformed into one of our fastest growing and most consistently profitable businesses. Since 2007, Greg has been at the helm of our business portfolio, during which time he has launched two important new brands–BNET and CBS MoneyWatch, as well as led the continued success of our storied IT brands–ZDNet and TechRepublic.

Greg’s unique ability to manage large businesses, as well as infuse them with his entrepreneurial spirit will serve this new team well as we build upon our success and look to the future.

During his 6 years at CNET Networks and CBS Interactive, Joe has been a driving force in the continued success of CNET.  Under his leadership, CNET is recognized today as the #1 tech media brand in the world, and CBSNews.com became a site worthy of the legacy of CBS News. In 2008, Joe architected the complete relaunch of CNET, which has resulted in record traffic growth ever since. The site recently eclipsed 100 million users for 3 consecutive months (an all-time record). Early on, Joe initiated the use of video across the site, taking CNET beyond just product reviews and making it the definitive resource for people who love technology and want to get the most out of it. This vision also included broadening the coverage model with new content additions like Car Tech and Crave.

At CBSNews.com, Joe led a major site redesign, which has reinvigorated the site, driving growth and attracting new advertisers with a renewed focus on photos and original content. Since its debut in mid-June, unique users are up 22%, page views are up 12% and video streams are up 28%. Joe and his team were also instrumental in helping Katie Couric launch her online presence, executing her Campaign and Inauguration webcasts, and most recently the @KatieCouric webcast.

In addition to being a good friend, Joe has been an invaluable member of my management team and I want to thank him for all his contributions over the years. Please join me in wishing him all the best in his new endeavors.

I’m excited about the possibilities this new business unit creates for us. We’ve got great leaders in Greg and Dave, and world class brands with exciting opportunities in front of them. I know that this new, combined team will achieve great success and I look forward to a prosperous 2010 with the entire CBS Interactive team.

Best, NA

Rhapsody, along with Best Buy’s (BBY) Napster, sell music via monthly subscription, as opposed to Apple’s (AAPL) a la carte download offering. But neither service has been able to gain much traction, despite years of effort.

Real Networks (RNWK) currently owns 51 percent of the Rhapsody, which it started, and Viacom’s (VIA) MTV the remainder. Restructuring will give both companies a 49 percent share, and “one or more minority stockholders” will own the rest.

There are a few other details, spelled out in the SEC filing below (for instance, Real needs to pony up some cash, and MTV gets released from some of the marketing agreements it signed on for a couple years ago). But the takeaway is this: Both companies get to move the money-losing music service off their books, and the new structure may theoretically give them a better chance of finding a buyer for the thing.

Last month Real’s founder, Rob Glaser, announced he was stepping down from the company’s CEO spot. But this reorg has been in the works for a bit: Real alerted shareholders to a possible move back in November.

Here’s the relevant text from the SEC filing:

On February 9, 2010, RealNetworks, Inc. (“Real” or “RealNetworks”), RealNetworks Digital Music of California, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Real, MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc. (“MTVN”), DMS Holdco, a wholly owned subsidiary of Viacom International Inc., and Rhapsody America LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“Rhapsody”) and joint venture formed by Real and MTVN (together with the other parties listed above, the “Parties”), entered into a Transaction, Contribution and Purchase
Agreement (the “Transaction Agreement”), which contemplates a restructuring of Rhapsody. Real and MTVN formed Rhapsody in August 2007 to jointly own and operate a business-to-consumer digital audio music service. Real currently owns 51% of the equity of Rhapsody and Viacom owns the remaining 49%.

At the closing of the transactions contemplated by the Transaction Agreement, Rhapsody will be converted from a limited liability company to a corporation, and the Parties expect that Real and MTVN and one or more minority stockholders will hold the outstanding shares of Rhapsody such that Real and MTVN will own slightly less than 50%, but an equal amount, of such outstanding shares. Real will contribute $18 million in cash, the Rhapsody brand and certain other assets in exchange for shares of convertible preferred stock of Rhapsody, carrying a $10 million preference upon certain liquidation events. A portion of Real’s cash contribution is to repurchase the international radio business that was previously contributed to Rhapsody. MTVN will contribute a $33 million advertising commitment in exchange for shares of common stock of Rhapsody, and MTVN’s previous obligation to provide advertising of approximately $111 million as of December 31, 2009 will be cancelled. In addition, both the Stockholder Agreement, dated as of August 20, 2007, between Real and Viacom International Inc., on behalf of MTVN, and the Limited Liability Company Agreement, dated as of August 20, 2007, among the Parties will be terminated, including the put and call rights held by Real and MTVN and MTVN’s rights to receive a preferred return in connection with the exercise of Real’s put right.

Real expects that the transactions contemplated by the Transaction Agreement will be completed late in the first quarter of 2010, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. At the closing, the Parties will enter into a Stockholder Agreement that contains provisions regarding the governance of Rhapsody, stock transfer restrictions and approval of certain corporate transactions. Rhapsody will
be initially governed by a Board of Directors with two directors appointed by each of Real and MTVN and one independent director appointed by mutual agreement of Real and MTVN. At the closing of the transactions, the Parties will also amend certain existing agreements, including the expansion of the technology and intellectual property licenses from Real to Rhapsody relating to the core technologies for the Rhapsody audio digital music service to provide worldwide, perpetual licenses and certain rights for use of the core technologies in business-to-business audio music services.

Upon the completion of the transactions contemplated by the Transaction Agreement, Real expects that it will no longer consolidate Rhapsody’s financial results with Real’s consolidated financial statements.

Armstrong, who took over the Time Warner (TWX) unit earlier this year and is prepping it for a spinoff that’s supposed to happen by the end of 2009, doesn’t plan on replacing either executive, say people familiar with the matter. Instead, their work will be divvied up among other Armstrong lieutenants.

Partoll’s mobile responsibilities, for instance, will be given to new hire and former Yahoo (YHOO) exec Brad Garlinghouse, while Kannapell’s responsibilities will be handed to newish hire and former Google (GOOG) exec Jeff Levick. Armstrong himself will handle international duties, previously assigned to Partoll.

Kannapell’s departure isn’t a total shock, since he was listed as “acting head” of local during a reorg that Armstrong oversaw in June. But Partoll is a head-scratcher, since she was promoted to her new/old position during that same exec shuffle.

And what about those layoffs? Armstrong is almost certain to make some cuts at some point–and has told employees as much. But people familiar with the company say he hasn’t been focused on cost structure (i.e., cuts) until recently.

In BoomTown’s bold quest to annoyingly stick a Flip digital video camera in the face of every Yahoo senior exec, this week I worked the last nerve of its CTO and EVP of Products, Aristotle “Ari” Balogh.

Actually, the 45-year-old Balogh is a very calm and pleasant man, especially considering the huge responsibility that has been foisted on him by CEO Carol Bartz to rejigger how Yahoo (YHOO) makes its products and services and deploy its technology in a more efficient, centralized and most of all, innovative manner.

It is actually a process that was started under the previous leadership, especially President Sue Decker.

But now, after a number of reorgs, a wide swath of Yahoo is under Balogh’s purview–from search to open initiatives to product development to trying to fix Yahoo’s big problem of never quite getting its innovations out the door.

To explain all this, Balogh sat down with me twice–he is clearly a glutton for punishment–to talk about where Yahoo stood as it sought to dig itself out of its long slump and reemerge as the potent Internet force it once was.

While he successfully avoided the questions about Yahoo’s talks to do a search and advertising partnership with Microsoft (MSFT), he did talk about his view of its new Bing search service (well done, but can it scale?–which is an engineer’s favorite schoolyard taunt).

He also addressed the bigger question of how Yahoo can stay relevant in the fast-changing Web 2.0 world.

To Balogh, copying trendsetters like Facebook is not the answer. For example, he noted that Yahoo is more a place where consumers do “one-way” follows of things important in their lives rather than wanting another social-network service (which Yahoo has tried and failed at, actually).

“We’re not going to be another social network,” said Balogh flatly, agreeing that that boat has already long sailed without Yahoo on it with a significant product–Yahoo famously failed to buy Facebook, well before Balogh arrived in early 2008 from VeriSign (VRSN). “But we can be a place where people make and manage the important connections they have.”

How this will all play out is one of the most interesting questions in Silicon Valley because–even after all the turmoil–Yahoo remains one of the largest sites on the Web.

About 500 million monthly unique visitors enter its homepage and course through its vast site constantly, from its search pages to its massive email and instant-messaging services and its popular suite of content sites.

No one says Yahoo is not big–what everyone says is that it has missed many major and critical Internet trends as it has become mired in a management morass and external battles.

Now, with new leadership in place, observers are waiting to see what’s next.

In this regard, it is important what Balogh thinks since he is perhaps Yahoo’s only person who even closely resembles a Web product visionary now that former CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang has stepped aside and Bartz has taken up command.

While he typically shies away from the spotlight, he is not bashful about talking about Yahoo’s infamous lugubrious development process.

“We have pockets of great technology that we have to really put back together into a coherent infrastructure,” said Balogh. “We have to get the basics right and focus on those core daily experiences that make Yahoo extraordinary.”

That is easier said than done, especially when changes impact so many consumers and, of course, the bottom line. Choosing what key trends to attack is harder for a large public company like Yahoo, which has a lot to protect in its current businesses.

“There will always be a battle between new ideas and monetization,” said Balogh. “The question is how much do you push that line back and forth?”

That fine line will surely be tested with the rollout of its new homepage in the fall, a long project that has been codenamed “Metro.”

“It is not a radical departure, but we have given users more power to do what they want and also serve as the best of Web versus that is already inside of Yahoo,” said Balogh of the new homepage. “With technology, it is always a push-pull.”

Here’s my video interview with him, talking about all this and more: