• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, January 2, 2007

In the second major shake-up at a video-sharing site in recent weeks, Guba's CEO Thomas McInerney has stepped down.

McInerney said he was leaving for a new pursuit, and that the company was at a crossroads--deciding whether to seek funding or to sell, according to a report last Friday on CNET's News.com site. He indicated that other Guba executives may also depart, since it appeared that the prospect of a billion-dollar deal in the sector passed with Google's $1.6 billion acquisition of YouTube.

A Guba spokesperson could not be reached for comment Friday.

Last month, Oliver Luckett and Ian Clarke, two co-founders of competing video site Revver, left the company along with other employees. Steven Starr, the other co-founder, remains as CEO.

The upheaval at Guba and Revver suggests that changes may be in store at other video sites this year, as they intensify efforts to find buyers or profitable business models before the sector's white-hot popularity wanes. Advertising on video-sharing sites remains unproven as marketers hesitate to associate their brands with user-created content that may be crude and unpredictable.

Guba appeared to be on a more mainstream path over the summer when it struck separate deals to with Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures to offer their movies and TV shows for download on Guba.com. But then Sony wound up acquiring rival video site Grouper for $65 million in August.

Guba co-founder Eric Lambrecht, who currently serves as chief technology officer, will take over as interim CEO, according to News.com.