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Beset by charges of copyright infringement and insider trading, the bad news keeps rolling in for Zynga as the social game company confirms the departure of chief operating officer John Schappert.

“We can confirm that John Schappert has left Zynga and its board of directors effective immediately,” said Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus in an e-mailed statement. “John has made significant contributions to the games industry throughout his career and we appreciate all that he has done for Zynga. John leaves as a friend of the company, and we wish him all the best.”

GamesBeat reached out to Zynga for more details. “No we’re not commenting beyond the statement,” said a representative for the company over the phone.

This comes after last week’s news that the company would be reorganizing their teams and that chief mobile officer David Ko and executive VP of games Steve Chiang would report straight to CEO Mark Pincus rather than Schappert.

Much of this came after the company announced a disappointing second quarter and suffered a 40 percent drop in stock in after hours trading.

In a form 8-K filed by the company today (August 8), Zynga said the following:

On August 8, 2012, John Schappert, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Zynga Inc., a Delaware corporation (the “ Company ”), resigned from his positions as an officer and a director of the Company, effective immediately.

Prior to Mr. Schappert’s resignation from the Company’s Board of Directors (the “Board”), he was a member of the Mergers and Acquisitions Committee of the Board. Mr. Schappert’s resignation from the Board was not tendered in connection with any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the Company’s operations, policies or practices.

The Company noted that Mr. Schappert has made significant contributions to the games industry throughout his career and it appreciates all that he has done for the Company. The Company further noted that Mr. Schappert leaves as a friend of the Company and it wishes him all the best.

This makes the departure seem much friendlier than previous reports.

Filed under: games, VentureBeat

Apple on Tuesday released a new iPad TV spot featuring the third-generation tablet’s Retina display along with the host of apps available for the device through the iOS App Store, presenting the product in a style that is a departure from the “Genius” ads shown at the start of Olympics coverage.

If you haven’t been watching, Facebook’s stock is essentially tanking. It’s not like the company is going out of business or that the stock will tumble to nothing (although that would make for some interesting stuff, I admit) but with it being off 45% (it closed at $20.88 yesterday) from its IPO price of $38, this can’t be LIKED very much by the folks in Menlo Park.

Now add to the troubles the fact that more top talent is leaving the company. All Things D‘s Mike Isaac (this guy is everywhere!) reports

The question on everyone’s minds after Facebook’s May IPO — How long till the brain drain starts?

Apparently, not that long. Ethan Beard, director of platform partnerships at Facebook, announced on Wednesday via Facebook that he will soon leave the company. Shortly thereafter, platform marketing director Katie Mitic also announced her departure from the company.

If that wasn’t enough, a third announcement came on Wednesday, as mobile platform marketing manager Jonathan Matus also announced his impending departure from the social networking giant.

Is this the rats leaving a sinking ship syndrome? Maybe but whatever the reason it is going to create trouble for Facebook as it now needs to find the talent to replace these people who have worked during the critical years to get Facebook to where it is today.

So what does this mean to marketers? Well, several potential things.

First, we all have to be aware just how fragile the social media space really is. If you are building your marketing around Facebook and it is becoming a majority of your time and effort you need to think about what you would do if it were to take a turn for the worse. We don’t like to think about these things but it’s that very practice of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ that can come back to bite us when the bottom drops.

Second, you need to think about marketing’s big picture. All of these social vehicles could conceivably pull a MySpace or a Yahoo at any time. There are few long term survivors and thrivers like Google in the Internet space. Tying your fortunes to one particular vehicle that could crash and burn is risky business.

Thirdly, you should heed the warnings about Facebook especially in the mobile space. There is a lot of chicken little ‘the sky is falling!’ talk around Facebok and mobile. Just because there is talk doesn’t, by any means, imply that it is all true. What is true though is the underlying reality that Facebook is having trouble with making money in mobile. Since over 50% of their current account holders are using mobile as at least part of their Facebook experience and the trend is moving even higher this is an area to keep an eye on for sure.

We can sit here and predict Facebook’s demise but that would be rash and borderline silly. It’s not likely to go anywhere in the short term. Over time though, it is important to watch how the company evolves with its talent. Will the best and the brightest stay to move through issues or will they take their dwindling share value and go look for another start-up to build?

What’s your take?

Mike McCue, the longtime tech entrepreneur perhaps best known at the moment as the founder and CEO of Flipboard, is no longer serving on the board of directors at Twitter.

It’s not an unexpected move: AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher reported back in early May that McCue’s departure was imminent. At that time, she wrote:

“The reason, sources said, is McCue’s growing feeling that the companies are on a product collision course, with a possible troubled or perhaps more attractive result.

In other words, Flipboard will either face increasing rivalry from Twitter or will end up as a possible acquisition target for it or other companies.”

This morning, AllThingsD’s Mike Isaac confirmed McCue’s departure with sources, and McCue’s tweet followed a few hours later.

McCue, who has been on Twitter’s board since late 2010, announced his departure via a Tweet, naturally:

To the @Twitter team: it was amazing to be part of the board. You're truly changing the world. Thanks @ev @jack @dick for the opportunity.—
Mike McCue (@mmccue) August 01, 2012

And Twitter CEO Dick Costolo responded with a short message of his own:

@mmccue Thanks for the time, enthusiasm and passion you've brought to everything happening here. Remember the slide you showed me in 2009?!—
dick costolo (@dickc) August 01, 2012

McCue is not the first industry exec to step away from his involvement with Twitter in recent weeks. StockTwits CEO Howard Lindzon sold off all his shares in the micro-blogging giant one week ago. Days later, Twitter announced the launch of “cashtags,” or the ability to track stock tickers when they’re preceded by the U.S. dollar symbol — which is something that was pioneered by StockTwits years ago. In a blog post, Lindzon publicly called out the launch as a “hijacking” of StockTwits’ feature.

Twitter has been aggressive elsewhere in claiming territory recently: Last week, the company shut off part of its API access to Instagram, blocking the ability for Instagram users to “find their friends” through the service, for example.

As Mike Isaac reported in-depth today, McCue’s abrupt, and publicly unexplained, departure from Twitter’s board could be a signal that as the CEO of a smaller company that relies on Twitter’s API, he is uncomfortable with these kinds of moves. Or he could simply be too busy with Flipboard to continue carrying out his boardroom duties. For now, the details are being kept behind closed doors.

We’ll be updating this story as more information comes in.

After Scott Thompson’s unceremonious departure from Yahoo’s CEO spot earlier this year, Ross Levinsohn took over as the company’s interim chief executive — and for a while there, he was widely expected to eventually be named Yahoo’s permanent CEO.

But, of course, that’s not what ended up happening. This month, Yahoo announced that longtime Google executive Marissa Mayer would take the CEO spot.

And now it’s official that Levinsohn will not be sticking around to see how it plays out. His last day is tomorrow.

The news was first reported in a post today by AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, which was followed this afternoon by Yahoo filing regulatory documents officially confirming that Ross Levinsohn will leave Yahoo, effective July 31.

Though his ego may have been bruised by Mayer’s appointment as CEO, he will not be walking out empty-handed: In the document, Levinsohn’s departure is classified as “termination without cause,” which makes Levinsohn eligible for a pretty nice severance package per his contract. This includes a cash payment equal to his annual base salary, his target annual bonus, and accelerated vesting of a number of his stock awards and options. Before he became Yahoo’s interim CEO, Levinsohn worked at Yahoo as an EVP and head of global media. Last year, his base salary was $700,000.

Yahoo has issued a separation agreement signed by Marissa Mayer, which details boilerplate clauses such as non-disparagement and non-compete. In the end, just before Mayer’s signature, is a terse valedictory: “I wish you good luck in your future endeavors.” Levinsohn’s executive background is solid, and he’s quite well-respected in the worlds of both tech and media — so it will certainly be interesting to see what those endeavors are.

You can’t blame Yahoo’s board for being a little bit gun shy. After all, eight out of 11 directors are new this year — three of them were appointed in the wake of the highly-public resume scandal that ousted CEO Scott Thompson. With the Thompson debacle, the departure of…



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T-Mobile USA’s chief executive Philipp Humm has abruptly resigned from his position today, according to the company.

We don’t know the exact reason for Humm’s departure, but T-Mobile did say he was interested in pursuing a career outside of T-Moblie parent company Deutsche Telekom. If I had to make a guess as to why he’s leaving, it would probably because being CEO offers him little in the way of career growth.

T-Mobile is the fourth largest wireless carrier in the U.S., and it was unable to merge with the nation’s second largest carrier AT&T last year due to the sale being blocked by federal regulators. Under Humm’s direction, T-Mobile did come out ahead in that deal, but beyond that, the carrier’s growth potential is rather limited. Not only does T-Mobile have to pay for expensive speed upgrades to its wireless network, but it also may never come close to surpassing its nearest rival Sprint (the third largest carrier in the U.S).

While T-Mobile searches for someone to fill the position, COO Jim Allings will take over Humm’s duties. Meanwhile, Humm is said to return to Europe, which is where his family still lives.

Via AllThingsD; Photo by Sean Ludwig

Filed under: deals, mobile

Research in Motion is cutting its supply chain up, starting with smartphone manufacturer Celestica, which will stop RIM production completely within the next 3-6 months.

The manufacturer expects to spend around $35 million restructuring after RIM’s departure.

RIM has been reevaluating its supply chain as sales dwindle in the competition against iOS and Android. The company whose devices were extremely popular in corporate environments, is failing to keep up with the consumer smartphone demands that Google and Apple have both readily met. In an effort to hold on, RIM is slimming down, including this supply chain restructure and an expected operating loss for its first quarter 2012 earnings.

“The on-going competitive environment is impacting our business in the form of lower volumes and highly competitive pricing dynamics in the marketplace, and we expect our Q1 results to reflect this, and likely result in an operating loss for the quarter,” said RIM CEO Thorsten Heins in a recent company update that forced the company to halt trading on its stock.

Celestica seems to remain positive in all of this, however. The company reassured customers in its announcement today that it still anticipates a revenue increase from $1.65 billion to $1.75 billion, as well as a six cents increase on its earnings per share, at $0.26. The company is now being forced out into the wild to find customers that may be able to help Celestia grow, as opposed to RIM, who is seemingly now just trying to break even.

Early in June, RIM’s stock fell into the single digits at $9.57 a share for the first time in nearly a decade. The company is also planning to shut down production on its 16GB PlayBook, the company’s star-crossed attempt at entering the tablet market. But there is hope on the horizon for RIM. The company is planning to launch its Blackberry 10 operating system soon, which the company hopes will refresh its line of smartphones.

Blackberry image via Shutterstock

Filed under: mobile

It’s been a little over a year and a half since we wrote about Fritz Lanman’s departure from Microsoft, to build his own startup called “5Star.” Well, now we’re hearing that his startup, actually called Livestar, is going to launch soon, judging by a demo video posted on Lanman’s Facebook page. As early as next week even.

Since our initial article, Lanman, a former Microsoft and Yahoo deals guy, has made some pretty savvy angel investments, most notably getting in early on Pinterest and Square. And now he’s ready to focus on his own project.

We’re hearing that the startup is trying to own the trusted recommendations space, and aiming squarely for the gap between Foursquare (mobile-enabled local) and Yelp (reviews). Livestar is apparently approaching this from a unique perspective, but one that that demo video does not entail.

We’re also hearing very very specific funding information, that the startup has raised $2 million from investors Hadi and Ali Partovi, Peter Chernin, Paul Buchheit, WME and Ray Ozzie. More next week apparently!