AOL Layoffs Hit Again

This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows of the Huffington Post acquisition (and particularly to anyone who’s been watching headlines for the past week or so), but AOL’s laying off employees again.  The total number of affected individuals is close to 1,000.

Leena Rao, who actually works for AOL now that it’s been bought TechCrunch, confirmed some rough figures earlier this morning.  She wrote, “AOL will be letting go a little over 200 U.S. employees, around 120 of which are editorial staffers.  The remaining employees that are being let go also work in AOL’s media business but in other operations (technology, product).”

Then, as rumors suggested, it turns out that the other employees targeted by these layoffs live in India.  Rao reported, “In total, India’s casualties are above 700 employees.  In India, AOL will be letting go around 400 employees and transitioning around approximately 300 employees to become contractors.”

Let’s hope that last detail softens the blow a bit.

Anyway, all this activity seems to have impressed investors.  At the moment, AOL’s stock is up 0.41 percent, even as the Dow is down 1.31 percent and the Nasdaq is down 1.52 percent.

The latest round of layoffs may make AOL a more profitable company (and safer place to work) as intended, then.

AOL Layoffs Hit Again

This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows of the Huffington Post acquisition (and particularly to anyone who’s been watching headlines for the past week or so), but AOL’s laying off employees again.  The total number of affected individuals is close to 1,000.

Leena Rao, who actually works for AOL now that it’s been bought TechCrunch, confirmed some rough figures earlier this morning.  She wrote, “AOL will be letting go a little over 200 U.S. employees, around 120 of which are editorial staffers.  The remaining employees that are being let go also work in AOL’s media business but in other operations (technology, product).”

Then, as rumors suggested, it turns out that the other employees targeted by these layoffs live in India.  Rao reported, “In total, India’s casualties are above 700 employees.  In India, AOL will be letting go around 400 employees and transitioning around approximately 300 employees to become contractors.”

Let’s hope that last detail softens the blow a bit.

Anyway, all this activity seems to have impressed investors.  At the moment, AOL’s stock is up 0.41 percent, even as the Dow is down 1.31 percent and the Nasdaq is down 1.52 percent.

The latest round of layoffs may make AOL a more profitable company (and safer place to work) as intended, then.

Charlie Sheen Tweets Are Like Super Bowl Ads

95,333 clicks in the first hour. 412,000 clicks in 48 hours. A trending topic on Twitter (worldwide). Internships.com received 74,040 applications from 181 countries. These are all things achieved by a single tweet from Charlie Sheen.

More specifically, they’re stats provided by Ad.ly, who organized this paid tweet by Charlie Sheen, on behalf of Internships.com. Does this represent the power of Twitter or the power of Charlie Sheen? Perhaps both.

@charliesheen
Charlie SheenI’m looking to hire a #winning INTERN with #TigerBlood. Apply here – http://bit.ly/hykQQF #TigerBloodIntern #internship #ad 2 days ago via Ad.ly Network · powered by @socialditto

“On Monday morning, Internships.com was a start-up with a good product. By Tuesday morning, it was a brand with a promising future,” wrote Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh on his company blog. “Success on this scale is rare to achieve outside of a multi-million dollar Super Bowl ad. But with 1,000 celebrities available to endorse brands in social media, Super Bowl moments have become much more accessible and measurable.”

“And frankly, after 24,000 endorsements over the past 12 months, these results are not surprising,” he added. “Celebrities are the driving force in social media.  Celebrities are the new prime time.”

Internships.com has posted the following infographic about the tweet:

Research firm Wedbush takes a mor in depth look at Twitter endorsements, and the Charlie Sheen affect in this report (embed courtesy of the New York Times’ DealBook):

Wedbush report

Here’s an interesting question on a side note: Why is Google ranking as suspended account for “ChuckSheen” over Charlie Sheen for a “Charlie Sheen on Twitter” search?

Charlie Sheen Tweets Are Like Super Bowl Ads

95,333 clicks in the first hour. 412,000 clicks in 48 hours. A trending topic on Twitter (worldwide). Internships.com received 74,040 applications from 181 countries. These are all things achieved by a single tweet from Charlie Sheen.

More specifically, they’re stats provided by Ad.ly, who organized this paid tweet by Charlie Sheen, on behalf of Internships.com. Does this represent the power of Twitter or the power of Charlie Sheen? Perhaps both.

@charliesheen
Charlie SheenI’m looking to hire a #winning INTERN with #TigerBlood. Apply here – http://bit.ly/hykQQF #TigerBloodIntern #internship #ad 2 days ago via Ad.ly Network · powered by @socialditto

“On Monday morning, Internships.com was a start-up with a good product. By Tuesday morning, it was a brand with a promising future,” wrote Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh on his company blog. “Success on this scale is rare to achieve outside of a multi-million dollar Super Bowl ad. But with 1,000 celebrities available to endorse brands in social media, Super Bowl moments have become much more accessible and measurable.”

“And frankly, after 24,000 endorsements over the past 12 months, these results are not surprising,” he added. “Celebrities are the driving force in social media.  Celebrities are the new prime time.”

Internships.com has posted the following infographic about the tweet:

Research firm Wedbush takes a mor in depth look at Twitter endorsements, and the Charlie Sheen affect in this report (embed courtesy of the New York Times’ DealBook):

Wedbush report

Here’s an interesting question on a side note: Why is Google ranking as suspended account for “ChuckSheen” over Charlie Sheen for a “Charlie Sheen on Twitter” search?

1 Yahoo Shuffles Sales Force Leadership

Yesterday, LivingSocial announced that it had hired a high-ranking Yahoo sales exec (“Vice President of North American Field Sales”).  Now, although the timing has to be a coincidence, Yahoo’s made two personnel changes that should help strengthen its sales organization.

Wayne Powers, who is himself somewhat new to Yahoo, explained the adjustments in an internal memo obtained by Kara Swisher.  Carol Bartz, Ross Levinsohn, Blake Irving, Elisa Steele, and Tim Morse were all on the “Cc” list, by the way.

At any rate, Powers wrote, “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.”

Later, he added, “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.”

Ritzcovan comes to Yahoo from Time, where she dealt in corporate sales and marketing.  Morokutti, meanwhile, was most recently a VP of ops finance.

So this development should give Yahoo one sales exec who has experience at a big, successful media entity and another who has plenty of knowledge regarding the company’s inner workings.

1 Yahoo Shuffles Sales Force Leadership

Yesterday, LivingSocial announced that it had hired a high-ranking Yahoo sales exec (“Vice President of North American Field Sales”).  Now, although the timing has to be a coincidence, Yahoo’s made two personnel changes that should help strengthen its sales organization.

Wayne Powers, who is himself somewhat new to Yahoo, explained the adjustments in an internal memo obtained by Kara Swisher.  Carol Bartz, Ross Levinsohn, Blake Irving, Elisa Steele, and Tim Morse were all on the “Cc” list, by the way.

At any rate, Powers wrote, “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.”

Later, he added, “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.”

Ritzcovan comes to Yahoo from Time, where she dealt in corporate sales and marketing.  Morokutti, meanwhile, was most recently a VP of ops finance.

So this development should give Yahoo one sales exec who has experience at a big, successful media entity and another who has plenty of knowledge regarding the company’s inner workings.

Google Apps Marketplace Turns One

Google said today its apps marketplace has turned one and during that time it has grown from 50 to over 300 apps.

Over the last year Google said its has learned the following:

*Web app adoption is accelerating across every business function and need

*You value web apps that work together — what we call integrated apps

*It’s harder than ever to evaluate and select the right app, given the number of new apps coming to market, and their increasing specialization

The Google Apps Marketplace says it is working on features to make it easier for users to find, try out and deploy apps that can be integrated instantly.

“It’s been a successful year bringing 300 new integrated apps to our users around the world,” explains the Google Enterprise Blog.

“Let us know what you’d like to see added or improved using our ideas page, and keep checking back for new apps.”