Let the fingerpointing begin. A friend of ousted AOL advertising executive Mike Kelly takes issue with our assignment of blame for AOL's dwindling search market share. He says that Ted Cahall, the weightlifting strongman of Dulles, Va. (left) is responsible. It's true that Cahall — who is, judging by our tipsters' emotions on the subject, already widely loathed on the AOL campus — now oversees AOL Search. But Cahall only joined the company earlier this year. Kelly previously included search in his responsibilities, and from late 2005 to early 2007, AOL's search market share fell by nearly half. I'm sure Kelly has his strong points, but by the numbers, this wasn't one of them.

Search and ye shall find — steady employment in advertising, that is. That's the lesson I'm taking from Mike Kelly's abrupt ouster, announced today, as head of AOL's ad sales. How abrupt? Mediaweek just named him one of the 50 most influential people in advertising. If you haven't heard of Kelly, here's his resumé at a glance: A Time Inc. ad sales guy who rose to become publisher of Entertainment Weekly, Kelly was sent down by Time Warner to fix AOL's relationships with advertisers. He largely succeeded in that, and also spearheaded the acquisition of Advertising.com, an online ad network that places ads on third-party sites. Advertising.com has provided much of AOL's recent growth in ad revenues. But elsewhere, AOL's ad sales have stalled. Especially in search. And Kelly, fairly or unfairly, is getting the blame.