Shanda Online Brings In Yahoo Ad-Targeting Vet Zhu As Its New CTO

Shanda (NSDQ: SNDA) Online, the ad and content-serving arm of Shanda Interactive, has reeled in *Yahoo* alum Dr. Jing Zhu as its new CTO. Zhu spent eight years with Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), most recently serving as a senior director of the team that developed its contextual ad-targeting platform; the company rolled out a suite of advanced targeting options — including search retargeting and more “advanced” contextual targeting — earlier this year.

Zhu’s defection comes amid news that Yahoo is pulling the plug on its Direct Media Exchange, the self-serve ad-targeting unit of Right Media geared toward smaller publishers (via AdExchanger). Prior to the contextual ad team, Zhu spent five years as head of Yahoo Mail’s engineering team. Release.