Yahoo Execs Exit Stage Left - InformationWeek

The rotating door at Yokel must be well oiled, because a handful of executive director goings over the last two old age have turned into a changeless line of them.

In the two hebdomads since Yokel announced Microsoft's overtures for the company and then its grouping officially dead and Yokel and signed a non-exclusive advertising pack, respective top Yokel execs have got headed for the exits.

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Among them are a few of the company's top hunt execs. This week, senior VP and general director of Yokel Search Vish Makhijani left to go chief executive officer of Russian Yandex's Yandex Labs, where he'll better Yandex's hunt technology, including hunt algorithms.

Qi Lu, executive director VP of engineering for Yahoo's hunt and advertisement technology group, is also on the manner out, according to respective reports. Lithium have been in complaint of edifice Yahoo's Republic Of Panama hunt selling system, the hereafter of which had been up in the air among the treatments with Microsoft and the eventual non-exclusive ad trade with Google. It's not going away, but Lutetium is.

Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo's apparently outgoing senior VP of communities and communications, oversaw some of Yahoo's greatest ticket points like Flickr and Yokel Mail and Messenger. About two old age ago, Garlinghouse wrote a now celebrated memorandum called the "Peanut Butter Manifesto" detailing Yahoo's jobs two old age ago that used peanut butter as a metaphor for the company's failures. It's unclear where Garlinghouse is headed, or even whether he's left, but his going have been reported by both TechCrunch and the Wall Street Journal's BoomTown blog.

Among the others who've left in June: Jeff Weiner, a senior VP in complaint of networks, stepped down last hebdomad to go an enterpriser in abode at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. Usama Fayyad, former head information military officer and executive director VP of research and strategical information solutions, is leaving for untold pastures. Flickr laminitises Caterina Fake and Jimmy Stewart William Butterfield are leaving. Joshua Schacter, who founded societal bookmarking land site Del.icio.us, is out too. Another who's leaving is Jason Zajac, general director of societal mass media at Yahoo. Zajac have worn assorted hats, including caput of finance for the company's audience division and VP of corporate strategy.

There are a figure of grounds why top employees may be leaving Yokel in droves. A major re-organization could be one. According to Wall Street Diary studies Thursday, the company means to consolidate its e-mail, hunt and into one merchandise organization. There's also the looming issue of investor Carl Icahn's command to change Yahoo's board of executives.

Meanwhile, Microsoft took out an advertisement this hebdomad in the Jose Mercury News, one of Yahoo's hometown papers. "There are now very few companies that stay truly committed to defining the hereafter of hunt and online advertising," the advertisement read. "Microsoft is one of them."

And though it's easy to do Yahoo's failure to happen wage soil with Microsoft or the company's partnership with Google a whipping boy for these departures, there are some who are just moving on. Top Yokel revivalist and applied scientist Jeremy Zawodny is joining Craigslist adjacent calendar month after recently receiving a headhunting from Craigslist's CTO.

"I won't at all be surprised if some people believe this is related to Microsoft or Carl Icahn and the uncertainness surrounding Yahoo's future," he said in a station last week. "The world is that there's nothing pushing me out the door at Yahoo."

For its part, Yokel doesn't sound like it's exactly in terror mode. "We have got a deep and talented direction squad across all countries of the company," the company said in a statement.

Yahoo Adds Photo-Editing Tools to Flickr

Yahoo have just added photo-editing capabilities to the popular Flickr photo-sharing service it acquired in 2005. As the consequence of a trade announced back in October, the new Web-based toolset from photo-editing software system supplier Picnik now looks right on top of the Flickr interface.

"Providing the ability to redact directly within Flickr is an of import measure in offering our 20 million members around the Earth a complete photograph experience," said Flickr senior manager of merchandise direction Kakul Srivastava.

Picnik's Web-based photograph tools enable shutter bugs to enhance, edit, and black and white photographs on PC, Mac, and Linux chopine in any Web browser. The good news for proprietors of Wi-Fi-enabled photographic cameras is that photographs can be moved directly to the Web and then edited online without having to procedure them using desktop software.

Editing Features

To enable the Picnik tools to look inside Flickr, users merely necessitate to chink on the photograph redact check that appears on the photograph pages. The lone further measure required is to chink on a button to allow Picnik permission to redact and salvage alterations to any photographs stored online.

The photo-editing mathematical functions now available through Flickr include the ability to rotate, resize, and harvest photos, alteration photograph exposure settings, and even take pesky red-eye. A zoom along along control is also on tap that lets photograph editors to zoom in or out while redaction any photo.

Picnik's tools also include respective particular effects, such as as colour boost, achromatic and white, sepia, frames, shapes, text, and soften. Additionally, Flickr members have got the option of applying their redaction bids to a single photograph or an full batch of pictures.

Overseas Maneuvers

Flickr members in demand of more than advanced capablenesses can subscribe up for a subscription-based service priced at $24.95 per year. Picnik Premium supplies entree to higher-end photo-editing tools as well as a "perfect memory" characteristic that enables photographers to undo or remake any redact or particular effect, all the manner back to the original version of the picture.

Like the remainder of the Flickr site, the new Picnik toolset characteristics photo-editing instruction manual in seven languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Korean, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. The offering will no doubt come up in convenient for Flickr members located in Asia and in Europe, where Yahoo's photo-sharing service confronts stiff competition. According to the up-to-the-minute figs reported by marketplace research house comScore, Imageshack was the standalone photo-site leader with 13 million European visitors, followed by Flickr with 6.5 million visitors, and Piczo with 6.4 million visitors.

Yahoo trusts to derive an border over its photo-sharing rivals abroad as a consequence of its new photo-sharing understanding with planetary communication theory giant Telefonica, which have a particularly strong presence in Europe and Latin America.

As one constituent of a comprehensive trade announced last October, Telefonica's mobile-phone endorsers will be able to see and share their photographs over Flickr as well as browsing or hunt more than one billion mental images posted by Yahoo's photo-sharing service.