Yahoo's new grudge match
After yesterday's hastily announced reorganization, there are, besides president Sue Decker, two executives at Yahoo who matter: Hilary Schneider, newly crowned queen of ad sales and partnerships, and Jeff Weiner, king of content. Not all Yahoos are happy about Schneider's ascension, though. When Schneider first joined Yahoo, she was handed Yahoo's floundering "marketplace" businesses — local ads, classifieds, auctions, personals, online stores, and job listings. Most of those were businesses Weiner used to run — and more effectively, insiders say, than Schneider did.
"Revenue is down 10-15% in this group year over year," says one tipster, of the marketplace unit. As part of the reorganization, Weiner's getting most of those businesses back, except for Yahoo's job-listings site, HotJobs. But here's the rub. To do any moneymaking deals, Weiner's group will have to "partner" with Schneider. That's unlikely to go over well, given the clear rivalry between the two. So much for Decker's claims that the reorganization will speed decisionmaking.