Kara Swisher wrote earlier, "According to several sources . . . Bradford is planning on leaving the Internet giant to take a new position as Chief Revenue Officer of online content upstart Demand Media."  And Swisher (and her sources) are usually spot-on about these things.

Yahoo’s likely being dealt a major blow, then, considering what an important role Bradford plays at the company.  While almost all departures have theoretical financial repercussions – you have to figure everyone contributes to the bottom line in some way – Bradford’s position over ad sales means she has a direct influence.

Also, Bradford’s resume suggests that she’s good at her job, having spent time at Microsoft, Spot Runner, and BusinessWeek before heading to Yahoo.

Still, this development doesn’t have to represent a complete disaster for Yahoo.  As you might have guessed after reading the last paragraph, Bradford doesn’t always stay in one place for too long – she only spent about seven months at SpotRunner, for example – so her move may not say much about Yahoo’s situation.

UPDATE: Yahoo responded to a question sent via email by stating, "Joanne Bradford has decided to leave Yahoo! to pursue a new opportunity. Joanne will be working with the team over the coming weeks to enable a smooth transition."

Apparently an offer from Yahoo! was even more enticing, however, because she has just signed on as their senior vice president of U.S. Revenue and Market Development. In her new job, she will oversee sales and market development for advertisers, small business, and Yahoo! HotJobs, reporting to U.S. Yahoo! Executive Vice President Hilary Schneider.

Yahoo! Sings Praise for Bradford

"Joanne’s deep understanding of the marketplace coupled with her proven ability to package and deliver results-driven solutions for the world’s biggest brands will help Yahoo!’s customers connect with the audiences they most want to reach not just on Yahoo!, but across the web," says Schneider.

Yahoo! President Sue Decker seems pretty excited about the company’s recent addition as well. "We are thrilled to have an executive of Joanne’s caliber to lead Yahoo! through to the next phase of its growth," says Decker. "Yahoo! and Joanne have a shared mindset about the strategic role that Yahoo! and online marketing can play to both build leading brands and drive customer acquisition for the world’s leading marketers."

Yahoo!’s Best Days?

Yahoo! has not had its biggest amount of success in recent years, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem to Bradford. "I am convinced that the very best days for this company are ahead, and I want to leverage my experience in programming, distribution, and selling to help Yahoo! take this business to the next level."

I wonder if the famous (or infamous depending on how you want to look at it) Google/Yahoo! deal might have anything to do with her astonishingly positive outlook. She better hope that the Department of Justice lets it go through. Otherwise, those "very best" days might be behind Yahoo! after all.

Google by the way, has already said that they will go forward with the deal next month if the Department doesn’t stop them by then. Meanwhile, the Department has just gotten around to hiring an antitrust lawyer. It doesn’t seem like the case has been a top priority for the Department, so perhaps Bradford’s optimism isn’t too misguided.

After seven years with Microsoft, Bradford must have felt it was time to set out for greener pastures. Los Angeles-based Spot Runner announced their hiring of Bradford to head up national marketing services for the company.

Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog noted the announcement by Spot Runner, and found that Greg Nelson, former general manager of MSN International reporting to Bradford, will take over her job on an interim basis.

Bradford had been moving up the corporate organizational chart quickly in recent years. Before gaining the chief media officer/corporate VP job, Bradford ran Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions as corporate VP and chief media revenue officer.

Her boss at Microsoft, Steve Berkowitz, was already on track to leave Microsoft before the end of 2008, as Mary Jo Foley noted. She also cited a quieter Microsoft departure, Amir Majidimehr, corporate vice president for Microsoft

MSN Media Does Some Shuffling

A spokesperson at Microsoft broke down the various personnel changes as Bradford embraces the leadership responsibilities for the MSN Media Network. Those will pose a substantial challenge, as Bradford has been tasked with reestablishing MSN as a potent brand.

Whether that can happen with portal brands like Yahoo, AOL, and Google to a lesser extent depends on how well she and the various product managers can not only execute their brand strategy, but how much the public will buy into it.

It’s not as though MSN is hurting for traffic. They pull in more than 465 million unique visitors per month. As with virtually everything, room for improvement exists.

The spokesperson told WebProNews the names of those who will be charged with making the MSN brand resurgence a reality. Chris Dobson gets Bradford’s former global sales responsibilities as he takes over the MSN Global Sales Team. Bill Shaughnessy has been tapped to run Microsoft’s Digital Advertising Solution Business Group.

Shaughnessy’s duties include planning the direction for adCenter, Microsoft’s foray into self-service advertising and a dare to compete more forcefully with Google and Yahoo for the multi-billion paid search market.

James Colborn is a product manager for adCenter, and he’s someone I hope will be gracious enough to chat with WebProNews about adCenter as an option for our many small- and medium-sized business entrepreneurs. We extended the invitation recently through the proper channels, so we’ll see how that goes.

For now, Colborn said in an email that advertiser response to adCenter since the May launch has exceeded expectations. “We have some of the highest converting, most desirable audiences on the web,” he said. “We’re seeing higher click-to-customer conversion rates than competitive products.”

Live Search needs to continue to develop, “in order to provide the inventory that advertisers desire.” Colborn said, if they hope to match Google in paid search. “We must also continue to provide advertisers with the intelligence, ease, flexibility, control and service to better meet their ROI goals.”

There are plenty of places for Live Search to improve. Another spokesperson said search is still in its infancy, with opportunities abounding for improvement to the user interface, customization and personalization of search, and access to new media through it.

Those are the challenges. Let’s see if Bradford and company can deliver.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.