Yahoo Shakes Things Up and Restructures

By NewsFactor Network | December 6, 2006

It’s time for a shake-up at Yahoo. On Tuesday, the search engine announced that key executives will leave its ranks when it restructures itself into three new units at the start of 2007. Daniel Rosensweig, Yahoo’s COO, and Lloyd Braun, head of Yahoo’s media group, will both leave the company. Susan Decker, Yahoo’s current and widely esteemed CFO, will become head of the firm’s new Advertising and Publishing Group.

That group, one of three in Yahoo’s new structure, will attempt to expand Yahoo’s ad revenue through building a network of Web sites, including sites not owned by Yahoo, to display publishers’ ads. Yahoo will seek a new CFO to fill the vacant slot.

The new Audience Group will tend to Yahoo’s core product — its search engine — as well as its news and e-mail sites. The group also will develop mobile content and forays into social networking, where Yahoo has lost ground to sites such as MySpace and YouTube, recently purchased by archrival Google.

Lastly, Yahoo’s Technology Group will run the nuts and bolts behind Yahoo’s Web sites, building platform-wide systems under the direction of Yahoo’s current CTO, Farzad Nazem.

Yahoo Advertising Troubles

Often a darling among Web companies, Yahoo had a tough run in 2006, losing market share and search traffic to Google and other, more nimble rivals.

“Google’s AdWords and AdSense programs … have been much more effective at connecting searchers with advertisers,” said Carmi Levy, senior analyst with the Info-Tech Research Group. “Yahoo’s offerings have been much less efficient at making that connection, and at raising funds.”

According to Levy, Google’s ad revenue far outperforms Yahoo’s, even though both sites enjoy roughly the same traffic. But Yahoo might be able to gain ground with Panama, an upgrade to existing ad programs that lets advertisers target ads and track conversion rates more effectively than…

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