So I open up Techmeme and see that quite a few management changes at the top have been announced by various Web 2.0 (or thereabouts ) darlings - the interesting thing is I have never seen so many on the Techmeme leader board at the same time:
Skype is recruiting itself a Cisco CEO (it doesn't get more Corporate than that) probably in preparation to sell itself (again) or IPO - TechCrunch :
Skype’s new CEO is going to be Tony Bates, a senior VP at Cisco, who runs its Enterprise and Service Provider groups, which together account for about $30 billion worth of Cisco’s business. Bates will be moving to Skype HQ in Luxembourg and will begin his duties at the end of October. CFO Adrian Dillion will be acting CEO in the interim. Since it’s spin-off from eBay, Skype has a completely new executive team, including a new CFO, general counsel, chief marketing officer, and head of engineering. Now Bates will top off the new team.
Bates is a heavy hitter, especially in the enterprise world, where the bulk of Skype’s future revenues may come from. He was responsible for about 80 percent of Cisco’s business and even more of its profits. He had 12,000 employees reporting to him. Someone like Bates doesn’t leave that kind of a job unless he thinks Skype is going to become a major company with serious upside.
Skype's future is in the Enterprise space - what are they smoking? P2P is anathema to secure corporate nets. Also VoiP isn't that hard, well not for the big Telcos and large SI's that play in that space and own all the customers. Skype's only real strategic advantage is high consumer/SOHO penetration.
Anyway, next up is Twitter, which has put current COO Dick Costolo into the CEO position (Costolo flogged Feedburner to Google, you may recall) - TechCrunch again:
As COO, Costolo has been integral in Twitter’s attempt to make money. Efforts to do just that seem to ramp up everyday. And Costolo has been able to help Twitter bring aboard an impressive roster of talent. In Williams’ post, he mentions: Ali Rowghani, Adam Bain, Mike Abbott, Katie Stanton and Kevin Thau. All but Thau came aboard after Costolo.
Williams [Twitter co Founder] notes that Costolo has been a CEO three times before in his career, so he’s confident the transition will be a smooth one. Of course, this is also the second CEO change for Twitter as Williams himself took over from creator Jack Dorsey almost exactly two years ago.
Twitter tells us that Williams’ title will now just officially be “co-founder” and that he’ll be focusing on product strategy and vision. It’s worth noting that with the New Twitter roll-out, the company made it very clear that the product was mainly the brainchild of Williams. While that’s undoubtedly true, they were also undoubtedly setting up the company for this transition.
T'was Costolo wot puts Ads into Feeedburner and thus p*ssed off many of its users, but he did flog the company to Google before they caught on. They closed it eventually, of course. Let's see what he can do for Twitter.
Last up, Farmville manufacturer (grower?) Zynga recruits a Yahoodie - All things D:
For Zynga–the fast-growing San Francisco-based maker of such online hits as Farmville and Mafia Wars that got its start on Facebook–mobile is becoming a critical new platform for growth, as consumers use a variety of increasingly functional mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablet computers.
It’s also the fastest growing area internationally, where mobile phones are more widespread and where Zynga is seeking its next spurt of growth.
Sources said Zynga had been pursuing Ko for months. Before heading the Audience unit at Yahoo (YHOO), Ko ran its mobile operations, which included heading product development, making distribution deals and more.
Asia, Mobile, Online Social gaming for Real Money.....be a tough battle with the Japanese and Koreans who really invented this sort of game genre.
So, a "rush for seriousness" all of a sudden? It has, of course, probably got a lot to do with the Need For Money now that Risk Capital is running away from the space. It is also worth reflecting on this as London plays host to it's 6th or so Future of Webs Apps (FOWA) conference and ring the changes in Web 2.0 since it began. I was looking at the photos of the speakers all looking very traditional webcool (see the video above - kudos Jas Dhaliwal for link), but reflected that soon it will be no more of the Founders in T-Shirts that characterised the Future of Webs Apps Past, and we will see more Men in Suits in Future of Web Apps Future. 2002 Revisited.........
