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The trend is clear--the best bait for well-fed Googlers, especially ones who joined after the company's 2004 IPO, is another hot pre-IPO company. And Facebook is that company.

The latest Googler to jump to Facebook is Ethan Beard. Formerly director of social media at the search giant, he will become director of business development at the popular social-networking company. The news was first reported by TechCrunch.

The defection comes shortly after Google sales chief Sheryl Sandberg left to go to Facebook. Others who have blazed the trail include Benjamin Ling of Google Checkout, Justin Rosenstein of GDrive, and Gideon Yu, formerly chief financial officer at YouTube who left shortly after Google acquired it in 2006.

Yahoo defections aren't news. But people trying to get hired there? Stop the presses!

That's the gist of this blog entry at headhunter firm BINC.

BINC Chief Executive Boris Epstein writes:

"So it's obviously no surprise that Yahoo is in trouble right now and people are leaving in droves. That's why I was so surprised to hear one of my candidates tell me that he's currently interviewing with Yahoo right now. WHAT!! Why is he interviewing with Yahoo? It's like somebody jumping on board Titanic mid sink."

The candidate's reasoning is that Yahoo is investing its resources into making a last-stand effort to avoid a takeover by Microsoft. Epstein doesn't buy it though, and then he goes on to provide a list of the top 9 reasons people give for leaving Yahoo:

1. Want to escape before Yahoo gets acquired by Microsoft

2. Lack of innovation at Yahoo

3. Excessive bureaucracy

4. Seeking job stability and expect more layoffs

5. Want to be bigger fish in smaller pond elsewhere

6. Yahoo has lost its focus

7. Volatility of stock price after Microsoft offer

8. Poor management

9. Long hours and on-call nights and weekends

And I'll offer one to round out the list:

10. Google is hiring

The person in charge of marketing for Yahoo is the latest executive to leave the company, which is in transition.

Chief Marketing Officer Cammie Dunaway is leaving the company at the end of this month, according to a Yahoo statement.

Cammie Dunaway

(Credit: Yahoo)

"Since joining Yahoo in 2003, Cammie has built an award-winning direct-marketing team, improved the company's customer insights and found creative ways to improve our brand," the statement said. "Cammie has strengthened the marketing function and built a strong bench of creative talent. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors and thank her for her leadership, dedication and all that she has contributed to Yahoo."

Tech gossip site Valleywag reports that Dunaway is taking a new position that she described as "a natural fit for someone who loves driving profitable revenue for big, well-loved consumer brands and can't pass up the opportunity to be the coolest Mom in the universe."

Dunaway was named one of the 100 top marketers by Advertising Age. She cut her marketing teeth at Frito-Lay before joining Yahoo and has an MBA from Harvard.

The departure is the latest in a series for Yahoo, which is reorganizing and redefining its mission following disappointing financial reports and stock slides over the past few years. The company has struggled to find footing in the shadow of Google's dominance in the search and online advertising market.

The reorganization actually started last December when some key executives left--Lloyd Braun, head of entertainment and media, and Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig. Then, in June, Terry Semel stepped down as chief executive and was replaced by co-founder Jerry Yang. Other notable recent departures have been sales executives Wenda Harris Millard and Gregory Coleman and Chief Technology Officer Farzad Nazem.

Valleywag also has posted an internal Yahoo e-mail that says executives hope to find a replacement for Dunaway in the next few weeks.

Yahoo is leasing office space and hiring in the Seattle area, not far from Microsoft actually, as part of a plan to create a technology hub in the area.

The company has leased three floors, about 115,000 square feet, in an office building in Bellevue, Wash., and will likely fill it with 450 to 600 workers, David Sobeski, senior vice president of platforms and architecture at Yahoo, said in an interview on Friday.

(Credit: Yahoo)

In addition to hiring an unknown number of people, Yahoo will consolidate workers who are in scattered offices in the area. They include salespeople and engineers from data mining company DMX Group, which Yahoo acquired in 2004.

Sobeski cited the presence of "so many big companies" and a talented workforce in the Seattle area as the reason for the expansion there. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer was first to report Yahoo's lease of the Bellevue office space.

Microsoft's headquarters are in Redmond, Wash., which is next door to Bellevue. Both towns are across Lake Washington from Seattle, to the east.

"Our goal is to try to build a good technical engineering base up here in the northwest," Sobeski said. "We're going to turn it into a big center of excellence."

Of course, Yahoo won't poach Microsoft employees, he said. "And, yeah, I'm an ex-Microsoft guy," he said with an ironic chuckle.

Yahoo is undergoing an existential crisis of sorts following a series of earnings disappointments, market share slips and a management shakeup this summer in the wake of Google's continued rise in search and online advertising. Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang has promised to shut down "one off" services, eliminate redundancies, and focus on advertising business and portal-type services like e-mail and news.

Asked if now was really the time for Yahoo to be hiring and expanding in Microsoft's backyard, no less, Sobeski said, why not?

"We have a hiring plan for the company and we're sticking to it," he said. "This doesn't mean that we are adding to that hiring plan."

You can expect the offices to have the look and feel of Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., "all purpley and fun," as Sobeski put it.

Google has hired the publisher of Rolling Stone magazine to be its sales director in New York, according to a report onAdage.com that was confirmed by a Rolling Stone spokeswoman.

Tim Castelli has been publisher of Rolling Stone since April 2006. Before that he was associate publisher at Maxim magazine.

As a magazine executive who moved to Google he follows in the footsteps of former Time magazine President Eileen Naughton. She joined Google as head of ad sales in New York last year.

Spokespeople at Google did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

The latest Yahoo executive out the door is Peggy White, general manager of Yahoo Finance, a Yahoo spokesman confirmed on Thursday. An internal Yahoo e-mail discussing White's departure was posted in a reader feedback section on Portfolio magazine. It does not say what the circumstances were surrounding her departure, but the tone is fairly clear. "Peggy White will be leaving Yahoo. I want to thank Peggy for her time and contributions here," writes Scott Moore, head of news for Yahoo. Mark Interrante will serve as acting general manager of Yahoo Finance.