Following the recent reshuffling of Yahoo’s global marketing executive team with the appointment of Elisa Steele as CMO, the hiring of Penny Baldwin as SVP of global integrated marketing and brand management and most recently the promotion of Kristof Fahy as international marketing VP, it was apparently time for Yahoo Europe to get a new marketing chief as well.

We’ve learned former consumer marketing director at Yahoo James Tipple (pictured in the middle) will take over the role of European senior marketing director, effectively replacing Fahy. Tipple joined Yahoo in 2006 from Vodafone Live! where he was group marketing manager. He has previously held marketing roles at BT Cellnet (now 02) and GlaxoSmithKline.

Yahoo is clearly ramping up for the upcoming overhaul of its brand and marketing push, which is frankly long overdue if you ask me.

Over the next 2 weeks several staff from TopRank be hitting the road for multiple SEO/Social Media/PR speaking and training events. We invite you to attend and would love to meet up with readers of Online Marketing Blog. 

Topics during these events will emphasize the practice areas of our agency: Search Marketing, Online Public Relations and Social Media Marketing. Locations will range from New York to San Francisco to Minneapolis.

May 19: Media Relations Summit, Crowne Plaze Hotel in NYC (event info)

4:30 pm: Mastering SEO, Google AdWords and Other Search Tools to Increase Visibility
If you’re ready to vault your website, landing pages, corporate videos, blogs, press releases, and online newsroom into the top of the search rankings, take in this one-hour bootcamp. You’ll learn all the latest tools, tips and tricks for making Google and Yahoo love you.

Panelists:  Howie Jacobson, Consultant/Author, “Google Ad Words for Dummies”, Bill Barnes, EVP, Business Development, Enquiro and Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing

Tweetup Monday 5/18

May 28-9:  Private Company Training Engagement, San Francisco (Contact TopRank for our on-site training services)

    * Social Media Monitoring and Brand Positioning
    * Search Engine Optimization Skills for Corporate Marketing & Public Relations
    * Social Media Roadmap: Strategies and Tactics for Large Organizations

Presenters: Susan Misukanis, President, Jolina Pettice, Senior Account Manger, Lee Odden, CEO (All from TopRank Online Marketing)

Tweetup Friday 5/29, location TBD

June 2: ClickZ Online Marketing Summit, The Depot in Minneapolis (event info)

3:30 pm: Twitter and Advanced Blog Strategies
The Social Media Road Map:  Many companies are jumping off the cliff of Social Media, while others fear directly engaging customers.  Learn how to strategically align your marketing objectives with long-term social media strategies that work.

4:40 pm: Big Brands, Big Plans Panel
This is the highlight of the day… join a  round-table panel comprised of  the world’s leading brands and practitioners and get the inside scoop on how leading brands are driving success through social media, SEO, websites, and testing, and how you can apply these principles to your own initiatives.

Panelists: Jeanniey Mullen, CMO Zinio, Founder of Email Experience Council, Kevin G. Espinosa, eBusiness Platform Manager, Caterpillar Inc., Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing, Keith Dieruf, Manager, Online Marketing, Ameriprise Financial, Matt McGowan, Vice President of Marketing and Publisher, ClickZ

Tweetup – meetup 6/2

June 4-5:  Social Media Smarts, DMA Seminar Facility, NYC (event inf0)

9:00am – 5:00pm Introduction to the Intersection of SEO and the Social Web Through Strategy, Tools and Tactics
Intensive, 2 day workshop will help companies better understand the social web and how social media and SEO can help increase brand awareness, improve customer relationships and compliment both PR and marketing efforts at growing business.

Tweetup June 4, location TBD

June 10: PRNews Webinar (event info)

1:30pm (EST):  Boosting Your Bottom Line with Online News & Other Cost-Effective PR Tactics

From savvy email marketing campaigns to press releases that attract media attention, there are simple, cost-effective strategies that will help you increase revenue. This webinar promises insight from a mix of expert practitioners in a wide range of areas including:

    * How to generate buzz and word of mouth around your small business
    * Integrating PR efforts with marketing and advertising to increase sales
    * Driving traffic to your website through search engines
    * Building a strong community around your brand
    * PR’s role in uncovering customers’ needs for new products/services
    * Getting buzz and coverage among bloggers and citizen journalists
    * Best/worst tactics for holding media or customer events for your business
    * How to effectively leverage Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook & MySpace
    * Blogs and Video sites: what you need to know
    * Pitch your stories to bloggers and to the Twitter community
    * Writing social media press releases that work
    * Conducting keyword research and finding the keyword sweet spot
    * Optimizing PR content online, posting it and building reciprocal links
    * Linking techniques: from blogs to social networking pages
    * Identifying the most popular search terms for your campaigns
    * SEM tools, resources and SEM for-hire checklists
    * Email marketing Do’s and Don’ts

Panelists: Idill Cakim Vice President, Golin Harris, Sally Falkow Principal, ExpansionPlus & Senior Fellow Society for New Communications Research, Greg Jarboe President, SEO-PR, Lee Odden CEO, TopRank Online Marketing, Sophie Shiatis
Vice President Ecommerce, PRWeb, Moderator: Courtney Barnes Editor, PR News

Google may get three times more search traffic than Yahoo, but, SearchWiki aside, most of the innovation seems to be coming from Yahoo and Microsoft’s Live Search as they strive to gain a larger slice of the search market share.

Last year Yahoo introduced Search Assist, an advanced autocomplete feature that recommends related searches as you type your query into the search box. Autocomplete isn’t a new concept – Google has offered it for years through Firefox and its browser toolbar (and recently integrated it into its homepage). But Yahoo takes it a step further, going beyond just guessing what word you’re typing by suggesting possible related searches.

Today the site is introducing thumbnail previews for its image searches, allowing users to see how they should modify their queries to get the set of images they’re looking for. For example, typing “Obama” presents suggested searches for “Obama family”, “Barack Obama”, and “Michelle Obama”, each accompanied by a thumbnail indicative of what the query will yield. After trying a few searches of my own it’s easy to see how this could come in handy, especially when it comes to searching for queries with multiple, very different meanings (like “Sierra Nevada”, the beer or the mountain range). That said, the feature is a little quirky – oftentimes I had to refresh the page if I wanted any suggestions to appear.

Meanwhile, earlier this week Microsoft’s Live Search introduced the ability to use an image itself to search for similar images.

When Google pulled out of its proposed search advertising deal with Yahoo last month, it was chief legal counsel David Drummond who made the announcement. He cited concerns of a “protracted legal battle,” but only now do we learn that the Justice Department was only three hours away from filing an antitrust lawsuit to block the deal. Sandy Litvack, the prosecutor hired by the justice Department to head up the case, tells Am Law Daily:

We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the day. We told them we were going to file the complaint at that time of day. Three hours before, they told us they were abandoning the agreement.

It would have ended up also alleging that Google had a monopoly and that [the advertising pact] would have furthered their monopoly.

When it came down to the wire, Google blinked. It was the right move. But Google is on notice that the DOJ considers it a near-monopoly, and will treat it as such if need be. At least until the Obama Administration takes over. Then Google CEO Eric Schmidt can remind them how hard he campaigned for them to win.

Yahoo Glue, a new search results page design that the company has been testing in India, is rolling out to the US market this evening. You can view it at glue.yahoo.com, although Yahoo says it is rolling out in stages, so sit tight if you don’t see it.

It’s also a little different than the Indian version, and includes a number of resources beyond simple search results. On a typical query, content from Wikipedia, Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Answers, blog search results (from Google) and YouTube videos are shown.

For the US, Yahoo is starting with a limited set of topics and using a two column instead of a three column design. They’ve also left out the search results altogether. In this example for Barack Obama, prominent links to Memorandum (a political blog aggregator) are also shown.

Yahoo says they won’t use Glue to replace search in the US. Instead it seems to be a useful content page that brings in data from lots of different sources on topics.

Jerry Yang just put up a blog post on his reasons for stepping down as CEO of Yahoo.

In it, he highlights the successes of the past 18 months. Yahoo is now “rewired,” the new ad platform has been launched “that we think will transform how ads are bought and sold online,” and Yahoo remains “first or second in more than 20 product categories.” And he ends with the promise “that I will always bleed purple.” No matter what his critics might say.

The post is reproduced below in its entirety:

As you’ve no doubt already read, I’ve decided that I will step down from my role as Chief Executive Officer after my successor has been selected.

Ever since founding Yahoo! with David Filo 13 years ago, I’ve been passionate about this company, its brand, its employees, and the millions of people around the world who consider it their online home. That’s why I accepted the Board’s request to become CEO in June 2007, taking on the challenge of transforming Yahoo! at a time when the industry was evolving quickly and we needed to rethink and restructure our business.

And despite the tough external environment that we face, I truly believe we’ve made tangible progress in bringing our strategic vision to life. Most significantly, we’ve rewired our entire network to create a Yahoo! that has opened its doors to outside publishers and developers. We’ve launched an advertising platform that we think will transform how ads are bought and sold online. And we’ve continued to grow our audience –- standing first or second in more than 20 product categories and demonstrating that Yahoo! is the place users turn for major events like the Olympics and the Elections.

And now I believe the time is right for us to bring in a new leader –- someone who will build on the important pillars we’ve put in place and who will take the reins on the critical decisions our company faces. As for me, I’ll be returning to my role as Chief Yahoo and board member once my successor is named. I’ll go back to focusing on our global strategy, product excellence, technology innovation, and working with the Board and our executive team to help Yahoo! realize its full potential.

It’s been an extraordinary year here at Yahoo! –- for all of us. I’m really proud of the determination and resilience of Yahoos around the world who are so committed to giving you the best Internet experience possible. It is for them, and for you, that I will always bleed purple.

Jerry Yang
Chief Yahoo! and CEO