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Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang

Yahoo on Tuesday announced that co-founder Jerry Yang has resigned from Yahoo’s board of directors and all his other positions with the company. The resignation is effective today.

Jerry Yang co-founded Yahoo back in 1995 along with David Filo. Since then, Yang has been very active with the company, serving for a short time as CEO and otherwise maintaining a spot on the board of directors and the cheeky title of “Chief Yahoo.”

It’s been a tumultuous time in Yahoo’s top ranks in recent months: In September, Carol Bartz was abruptly ousted from the CEO spot, and Yahoo was without a chief executive for nearly four months as M&A rumors swirled around the company. Former eBay executive Scott Thompson took the company’s helm in early January, but many industry watchers say he has a tough road ahead to get Yahoo back on track as competition in the tech and new media spaces is tougher than ever.

For some, Yang’s departure may come as a bit of a surprise, as his loyalty to Yahoo has seemed unwavering throughout all the drama — just a few months ago, he was even rumored to be in talks to lead a deal to take the company private. But this also means that now Yahoo can be fully prepared to make a clean start as it works to reestablish itself as an industry leader. Either way, it’s official: Jerry Yang is now on the list of tech founders who have left the companies they helped start.

According to Yahoo’s press release, Yang’s resignation letter to Yahoo board chairman Roy Bostock reads:

“My time at Yahoo!, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo! As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future.”

Photo courtesy of Flickr user YodelAnecdotal

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The latest examples came to me from online design store Fab.com, which just launched in June and then pushed out its first mobile apps for iOS and Android in October. In just three months, it said that 30 percent of its traffic is now on mobile. MyYearbook, a social networking site that was bought by Quepasa last year, said, thanks to a big holiday push, it now has 54 percent of its traffic coming in on mobile.

Now, these are just two examples, but it shows that though they both got their start on the web, they’re increasingly running mobile services. Twitter’s mobile traffic is up to 55 percent while Pandora is up to 60 percent according to Mary Meeker, of Kleiner Perkins. That’s happening quickly with Facebook as well, which has 350 million of its 800 million users actively accessing the social network through mobile channels.

Meeker highlighted this at the Web 2.0 summit in October, showing how mobile search, payments and shopping has taken off in the last two years. Online shopping destinations like eBay are seeing more and more sales via mobile devices. IBM said that 18.3 percent of all online sessions on retailers’ sites on Christmas were initiated from a mobile device, compared to 8.4 percent in 2010.

Meanwhile, Google is increasingly capitalizing on the growth of mobile searches by encouraging businesses to think mobile first. It has said that 44 percent of last minute holiday shopping searches was expected to be by mobile and 79 percent of smartphone users currently utilize their phones to help with price comparison, product searches and locating a retailer.

The fact is, thanks to smartphones and tablets, the way people are going to services and destinations is changing. People are accessing stuff all the time on the go and that requires developers and publishers to think mobile first.

Om Malik touched on this last month when he talked about the redesign of his personal website Om.co. Here’s what he wrote:

When mulling over these changes, I began to wonder how a blog designed primarily for a mobile-first experience might fare. Of course, there would be a web-based version, too, but it would be not the primary focus. Mobile first meant — a great reading experience that allows readers to focus on things that matter — words, photos and videos — not the design flourishes and other elements such as social sharing icons.

Mobile first meant that the layouts would adapt themselves to the display. The iPad version would adapt to that device’s screen size while the iPhone/smartphone version would be even more barebones. The beauty of thinking about “mobile first” is that you get to use the latest in browsers, forget about backward compatibility and at the sometime are able to deploy newest technologies and hacks.

This is increasingly how publishers and developers need to prepare their services. There is still an obvious need for a traditional website but the shifting habits of consumption mean you can’t make mobile an afterthought. People notice if you’re not optimizing for mobile and ignoring mobile users and their experiences can cost publishers. Google quoted a study last year that found that 61 percent of mobile users won’t return to a site if they have trouble accessing it from their phone.

It also means you can’t just water down a site or gin up a simple app. It still needs to have robust functionality because people want to do a lot of things on mobile. And they look to developers to also leverage the unique capabilities of devices, which are location aware and have cameras and other sensors. Some developers may want to think twice about how they implement some web-only features if it can’t be enjoyed by mobile users.

We’re already seeing more mobile apps and start-ups that are beginning on mobile and then looking toward online. But there’s still a ways to go for traditional websites, businesses and services to embrace mobile. With smartphone penetration expected to cross over 50 percent soon in the U.S. and adoption unlikely to slow down, it’s going to mean people going online through the small screen. Those who prepare for a mobile first world are going have the jump when it comes to attracting those consumers.

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Those diminutive Raspberry Pi computers are finally set to launch later this month — if you absolutely can’t wait to get your grubby paws on one, however, good news: you can pick one up early at auction, if you’re willing to pay a little extra. The foundation behind the ultra-budget educational computers is giving buyers a head start, listing beta boards up on eBay. At present, the top spot belongs to beta board number 10, which is currently cruising at around £2,100.00, with about two days left at auction. If you’re lucky, however, the low-end number five, which is currently priced at around £620, shouldn’t increase too much in the next four days or so. And look on the bright side, all the money is going to charity here, so you can’t feel too bad about yourself. Right?

Beta Raspberry Pi computers fetching exorbitant sums (for charity) on eBay originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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