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Yahoo announced that PayPal president Scott Thompson will be its new CEO, starting next week. Wall Street still thinks Yahoo needs to define itself, and Om notes that Thompson’s still stuck with Yahoo’s dysfunctional board. About the only thing anyone said at the press conference was that Yahoo would remain a public company. Last summer, I sketched out a few options for Yahoo to try to regain growth, and we tapped the GigaOM readership for a Flash Analysis on its overall company future. Yahoo is a media company, as defined by its main source of revenue – advertising. It has some strong assets (customer base, leading content properties, email) but its formerly successful portal business model, that combined consumer communications, content and navigation faces severe pressure from search and social media. PayPal has been eBay’s growth engine recently, and Thompson brings expertise in product management, mobile and payments to Yahoo. But he’ll have to rely on lieutenants for content and advertising expertise.