Google Executive Marissa Mayer Named President and CEO of Yahoo!

At Business Week, "Marissa Mayer Is Yahoo's New CEO."

And at the New York Times, "A Yahoo Search Calls Up a Chief From Google" (via Memeorandum):

Marissa Mayer, one of the top executives at Google, will be the next chief of Yahoo, making her one of the most prominent women in Silicon Valley and corporate America.

The appointment of Ms. Mayer is consider a coup for Yahoo, which has struggled in recent years to attract top talent in its battle with competitors. One of the few public faces of Google, Ms. Mayer, 37, has been responsible for the look and feel of some of the search company’s most popular products.

Despite her background, Ms. Mayer — who will be Yahoo’s fifth chief executive in less than a year, two of them interim — will face a daunting challenge.

A pioneering Internet company that helped shape the industry in the 1990s, Yahoo is trying to remain relevant after failing to adapt to changing innovations like sophisticated search technology and social media tools. As Google and Facebook have emerged as Web giants, Yahoo has struggled to create a distinct strategy, even though its audience remains among the largest on the Internet. Now, the company is moving to lay off thousands of employees, in the face of slumping profits and a lackluster stock.

The big question is whether Ms. Mayer — or anyone — can help Yahoo regain its former stature.

Also at WSJ, "New Yahoo Chief Seen Reinvigorating Company's Product Offerings."

And the biggest angle is the Mayer's pregnant. See Fortune, "New Yahoo CEO Mayer is pregnant" (via Memeorandum).

And this is interesting, from Lisa Belkin at HuffPo, "Marissa Mayer: The Most Powerful Pregnant Woman In America":

So what value and obligation does Mayer have to working mothers? (And she does have one. As long as women with children are the exception at the top they are, willingly or not, role models.) It is to be aware of what she has that others need. To create a culture where jobs are as flexible as possible, so all parents can mold them around their family needs. To understand that a pregnancy doesn't diminish a woman's brain cells, or her worth. And that being a parent makes you a better, more committed, more focused worker, not a lesser one.

I wonder if Amanda Marcotte's down with that?