Yahoo pays first installment on its 100 day plan

Yahoo reorganized its sales team as president Sue Decker shook up the ranks, shuffled managers and said farewell to Greg Coleman as head of global sales.

The big picture: This move is really just a down payment on what will be CEO Jerry Yang's new strategy due in a few weeks.

Unless you're familiar with the names involved--Kara Swisher and PaidContent.org's Rafat Ali are--Yahoo's moves don't amount to much until these folks start delivering results. And if you're a shareholder you could give a rat's tail about this shakeup until Yahoo shows you the money.

PaidContent has the full text of Decker's memo and the big points are:

• Yang and Decker are looking at Yahoo top to bottom.
• They are reorganizing sales and distribution organizations around customers instead of advertising products.
• There's a new division called Global Partner Solutions, which is run by Hilary Schneider who is a rising star, according to Swisher. This group (GPS) is supposed to forge best practices for everyone regarding ad formats, marketing objectives and customer types.

Overall though, this reorg doesn't amount to much this minute.

More importantly is Yahoo's answer to social networking, which is grabbing advertising dollars away from traditional portals. Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck spent 96 pages in a report analyzing Yahoo's standing against the MySpaces and Facebooks out there.

Says Peck:

"We believe that Yahoo needs to acquire or partner with a social networking site relatively soon or risk being marginalized in some of its businesses. On July 17, 2007, CEO Jerry Yang announced a new, 100-day review of Yahoo!’s strategic direction. We expect that this review will include a rigorous exploration of possible acquisition and partnership initiatives with social networking sites."

Peck is reciting a common refrain on Wall Street. Analysts want answers on the social networking front from Yahoo. And until they get those answers these reorgs a little more than a sideshow.