Our sources reveal that the anticipated 700 layoffs have already started at Yahoo. We want to wish our local Yahoo! Tags: Gossip santa monica yaho After  posting falling results for Q1  a week ago, shiny new CEO Carol Bartz indicated this round of layoffs was on the way. Expected to be around 700 employees, we are told the actual number is around 600. 

The product development team behind Yahoo's news site, Yahoo News , has reportedly been moved to Taiwan , AllThingsD reported this morning. Yahoo's editorial team remains in Santa Monica. The move is the second one for product development at Yahoo News, which was previously located at Yahoo's media operations in Santa Monica. Yahoo had pulled development of the service out of its LA location in February, moving the UI and engineering design back to Sunnyvale. ...Tags: Tags: yahoo news taiwan overseas media santa monic

San Diego-based Underground Elephant , a startup focused on the CPA-based, performance based advertising market, said today that it has opened up an office in Santa Monica. As part of the new office, the firm said it has hired Jennifer Horwood, who the firm worked previously at another ad network, and Derek Chew, previously at Pricegrabber.com and Yahoo. The firm said it is looking to tap the talent in the Los Angeles are in the affiliate ad network industry. Underground Elephant is headed by Jason Kulpa.

Further details on the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft have come out in a filing by Yahoo with the SEC, with Yahoo saying that Microsoft will hire at least 400 Yahoo employees, and potentially another 150 employees to help with the transition, as Microsoft takes over the search engine features of Yahoo's sites. Yahoo and Microsoft said last Wednesday that Yahoo will abandon its search engine development efforts, and instead use Microsoft's technology--including Microsoft adCenter. It's unclear if any of those employees involved in the deal would be located in Yahoo's Southern California locations, which include Burbank, San Diego, and Santa Monica.

Yahoo is hosting a Web Development and Search Meetup on Monday, April 13th.  Yahoo 2450 Santa Monica, California 90404 Tags: Events yaho They are inviting you to come and learn about how to build search-friendly code.  Vanessa Fox, a former Googler, and Nathan Buggia, with Microsoft Live Search, will be there to answer your questions. 

Santa Monica-based Topspin Media , the developer of music and band marketing software headed by former Yahoo Music GM Ian Rogers, said over the weekend that it has added Andrew Mains as its new VP Artist Relations and Services. Tags: topspin media yahoo music content executiv Mains was Head of New Media at Interscope Records. The firm said that Mains will help artists find their way to the firm's platform.

Sources have confirmed that the Yahoo! offices in Santa Monica were burglarized this weekend. don’t want to say this was an inside job…but in this economy I wouldn’t blame a former Yahoo for taking some “severance” off the books. Yahoo I Once they peel off those purple stickers you can can probably find the goods on another aging web giant, Ebay.

So here's the Hot List for 1/1/2009 - 1/15/2009 Top 5 Posts The 7 Ways to Get Traffic on the Web Why You Need To Lead A Tribe - Seth Godin LA Gets Dugg, Hammered, Screwed How To Get The World Excited About Your Business –The James Siminoff Interview Viral analytics and metrics - go viral young startup Top 20 Keywords SEO Metrics Marketing Social Media Alelo Google Yahoo Mahalo MySpace Tech Coast Angels Idealab Mission Ventures Clearstone Hollywood Santa Barbara Venice San Diego Santa Monica Twiistup

Advertising is also what allows you to watch Hulu for free, use Yahoo! When I as a 41-year old living in Santa Monica with 2 young boys type “Halloween Costume” into Google it is pretty clear that there is a highly likelihood or intent by me to shop for Halloween goods.  Advertising has driven the majority of Internet innovation My firm GRP Partners recently funded a young LA based company named Ad.Ly that is an “in-stream advertising” company currently focused on monetizing Twitter. 

Santa Monica-based Mahalo, the high profile startup headed by Jason Calacanis, has launched a new questions and answers site it is calling Mahalo Answers. The new service is similar to offerings from Yahoo with its Yahoo Answers service, Los Angeles-based Sodahead , and Demand Media's Answerbag Q&A service. The new Q&A service is the mysterious "Project A" which Calacanis was drumming up beta testers for earlier this month. Mahalo is a human powered search engine which uses a team of editors to cull the web for information on the most popular search topics.