It remains to be seen whether all social networks can be profitable on advertising alone—and crucially what formats will work best alongside people’s communications with each other—but for now we are at least seeing some big growth in the space.

When Jerry Yang‘s family moved from Taipei to San José, the billionaire Yahoo founder was just 10 years old. Fatherless by the time he was two, Yang has said he knew one word of English: “Shoe”.

Investors won’t have Jerry Yang to blame anymore. In a stunning move announced after the markets closed, the Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) co-founder resigned from the company’s board of directors and from all other positions—effective immediately. Just as quickly, Yahoo’s stock jumped in after-hours trading.

Last week’s CES event brought a clutch of announcements around interactive TV services—specifically around more content getting pushed to devices. That points to growing attention to the medium: will advertising follow?

Today we know a bit more about how Groupon (NSDQ: GRPN) plans to extend its business opportunities in the years ahead: mobile services will be playing a key role, and so, it seems, will carriers.

All Scott Thompson has to do is show up as CEO of Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) for the next year or so and he stands to make around $25 million. If he actually meets a few performance goals, make that $27 million.

The markets didn’t punish Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) today when it announced it would appoint a payments technology specialist, Scott Thompson, as its CEO to run a business largely built on content, search and advertising. But it didn’t exactly reward it, either: the stock closed down by 51 cents at $15.82,…

Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) this morning confirmed that it has appointed a new CEO, Scott Thompson, formerly the president of eBay’s payment division, PayPal. His appointment comes four months after Carol Bartz was fired from the job.

This is the fifth in a series of posts this week that will highlight key people, companies and trends to watch in 2012 in the sectors we cover most, from publishing to legal, and from mobile to advertising. According to figures from ZenithOptimedia, global advertising revenues will reach $486 billion…

Some research out from Xyologic today on app store download trends in 2011 indicates that while games have remained a popular category across both Apple’s App Store for free apps and the Android Market, they appear far more popular on with iPhone users than they are with Android users when…

This is the fourth in a series of posts over this week that looks at the most significant developments of this year in the sectors that we cover, from publishing to mobile to advertising. Despite the economic slowdown, digital advertising and marketing revenues grew in 2011 and remained a cornerstone…

“Where did the computer go?” was the slogan Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) used in 2004 when it launched the first of its current range of iMac desktop computers. The question was designed to draw attention to the ingenuity with which the company’s designers had managed to pack the components of an…

Not a new development, but further confirmation that there may be one on the horizon. China’s Alibaba, Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies and U.S.-based VC firm Silver Lake are preparing a joint offer to buy Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), according to reports.

Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) has been no stranger to the apps rush that has swept through the mobile world, and now there are signs that it is looking to redouble its tablet efforts with a new HTML5 product. PaidContent understands that it is preparing for an autumn launch, possibly as soon…

At Google’s Zeitgeist Americas conference, Larry Page spent a good amount of time on stage—maybe one of the longest appearances he has made since taking over as the CEO of the company earlier this year. But when it came to the Q&A, he invited former CEO (and still-chairman) Eric Schmidt,…

Given the recent news of Carol Bartz’s departure as CEO, a Q&A with EVP of Americas Ross Levinsohn couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment. He took the stage at paidContent Advertising conference for his first post-Bartz appearance, addressing efforts with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and AOL (NYSE: AOL) to…

Very big news today for the mobile advertising world, and a major boost for the mobile ad network InMobi: the company has just announced that it has raised a massive funding round—$200 million—from the Japanese company Softbank Corp. The value is a sign of how much hope and expectation is…

Update: We’ve just kicked off the conference and our live stream is available here. Some of the best minds will gather Thursday in New York for paidContent Advertising: Emerging Business Models, the first major conversation about advertising following a summer—and a first week back— than was more active than any…

Push has finally come to shove at Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO). Kara Swisher reports that Carol Bartz is out at Yahoo and that CFO Tim Morse is interim CEO. Bartz has been rumored to be out the door almost as long as she has been at Yahoo; the drumbeat only has…