Source : Globe & Mail

There are likely to be some long faces at NBC this week. The network -- which has gotten plenty of attention this year for its ambitious embrace of Web distribution and its decision to play nice with YouTube -- has lost some senior talent: Michael Steib, the senior executive that has been steering its new broadband initiatives. And where is Mr. Steib off to? Why, Google, of course. He's going to be spearheading the search engine's increasing moves into video, which got a gigantic boost last year with the $1.6-billion (U.s.) acquisition of YouTube.

Rafat Ali and the gang over at PaidContent broke the news first, noting that Steib was the general manager of strategic ventures for NBC Universal, and the guy who founded and was responsible the National Broadband Broadcasting Co. or NBBC -- the groundbreaking unit that the network launched in September to distribute its content through Web portals such as YouTube. Steib reportedly pushed for the venture after executives watched the viral success of the "Lazy Sunday" video clip from Saturday Night Live a year ago, which was downloaded by more than six million people in less than a week.

From the sounds of it, Steib is going to be working on "monetizing" Google Video and YouTube by creating some sort of advertising program, something the Web startup had not really done much of before it was acquired. "We are pleased to have Michael Steib join the Google team to help us work with advertisers to create effective, measurable video advertising," a Google spokesman told MediaPost. Will it be pre-roll ads? Post-rolls? Pop-ups? Ashkan Karbasfrooshan of Mojo Media says that Google wants to create AdSense for video.

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