Big Corps losing high executive to Google and Startups

Very recently, Venture Beat carried an article - Chief Architect Brad Fitzpatrick left Six Apart - a Silicon Valley start-up that offers several blogging software platforms, including Movable Type, Typepad, LiveJournal etc.

It is believed that Fitzpatrick, after selling his company - Danga Interactive to Six Apart, got bored with his team members and misses the excitement of a fast-paced, innovative environment. Speculations are high that he will join Google. Recently, LiveJournal faced quite a backlash after the mass deletion of several journals with sex-themed groups.

LiveJournal deleted around 500 journals in hopes of better “protecting children.” It said the deletion was prompted by activist groups, including one called Warriors for Innocence that claims to track sites promoting pedophilia, the sexual abuse of minors, and other illegal activities.

UPDATE:

Barak Berkowitz, CEO and Chairman of Six Apart Board of Directors wrote a clarification article regarding the suspended LiveJournal accounts. He said that LiveJournal have restored most of those suspended accounts. They are continuing to work with people who feel they have been suspended in error. He assured LiveJournal users that those accounts were suspended (not deleted) and are working to get the authentic ones up.

INDIA

Back home, Managing Director of Yahoo! India, George Zacharias resigns exactly after 18 months. He was appointed as the MD of Yahoo! India on January, 2006. Prior to joining Yahoo!, George was the Chief Operating Office of the Chennai-based Sify.

Before this event, it was Neville Taraporewalla, who quite Yahoo! India in November 2006 after spending about 30 months as the country manager. A few months back. Yahoo! reshuffled its top-level management by promoting Yahoo! India CEO Venkat Panchapakesan as the Executive Vice President and announced former corporate vice president, product operations and general manager for India of Symantec, Sharad Sharma, as the CEO of Yahoo! India Research and Development.

Industry experts feel that the constant changes are a result of Yahoo! losing out to competitor Google in search marketing and other online advertising. A rival international internet company said, “The search marketing initiative of Yahoo! is not clearly targeted at a specific audience - whether on the mobile or on the internet.”

As an aftermath, Yahoo! have formed a three-member leadership - Pranesh Anthapur, Sandeep Srivastava and Pearl Uppal - to oversee Yahoo! India operations. The three-member team will report to Keith Nilson, Vice President, International emerging market, based in Singapore.