Yahoo's head of social platforms leaves for eBay
Less than a week after Communications Products Head Jason Titus bid Yahoo good-bye, the company's VP for social platforms, Neal Sample, follows suit.
In yet another major departure from Yahoo in recent days, Yahoo VP for Social Platforms Neal Sample has left the company for eBay, where he will be the chief of the e-commerce giant's architecture.
After being contacted by me after I heard about his departure from several Yahoo staffers, Sample confirmed the move but did not provide other details.
A Yahoo representative also confirmed Sample's leaving.
It was less than a week ago that Yahoo Communications Products Head Jason Titus also left the company.
Now Sample's move is another blow to Yahoo's management team, led by CEO Carol Bartz, given his job as the leader of the Internet giant's open, social, and publishing platforms.
That purview stretched from comments to Answers to status updates and, of course, Yahoo's recent move to integrate social networks such as Facebook and Twitter deeply into the service.
Sample and his colleagues were behind the Silicon Valley Internet giant's late-to-the-social-party strategy of employing an all-inclusive hug of every social networking service globally and providing users with a kind of social dashboard that is understandable amid all the noise.
Here is a video interview I did with Sample in June, right after the integration with Facebook was complete.