• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 18, 2007

There is a shuffle going on in the top tiers of Internet and print media companies. A few weeks ago, Wenda Harris Millard left AOL to join Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; now Tim Castelli, formerly the publisher of Rolling Stone, is moving in the opposite direction, joining Google as its New York sales director. Although many print pros are moving online, the shift can occur in either direction.

Castelli was publisher at Rolling Stone for less than two years, and while no details about his departure were available, this suggests continuing instability at the venerable music magazine. (Rolling Stone's previous publisher, Steve DeLuca, left the company amid a highly publicized dispute with owner Jann Wenner over its 1,000th-issue anniversary party.)

His move also reflects Google's continuing expansion of relationships with Madison Avenue executives and media buyers. After building its business on the "long tail" of small and first-time advertisers, the company is seeking to sustain its growth by tapping into the ad budgets of big marketers.

With speed a priority for the publicly traded search giant, hiring sales executives from the traditional media is a quick shortcut to building relationships with media buyers and planners. In fact, Castelli is the second top-level mag hire by Google in less than a year. In August 2006, it hired Eileen Naughton, a former president of Time magazine, as the head of ad sales for its New York office.

Millard's move to MSLO from Yahoo was part of a larger game of musical (and disappearing) chairs at both companies. At Yahoo, the display ad sales division she headed is merging with the company's search ad business. At MSLO, president and publisher Lauren Stanich is stepping into an advisory role. As the new president of media, Millard will oversee MSLO's publishing, Internet and broadcast concerns.

Her new role actually marks Millard's return to the publishing world. Most recently, from 2000-2001, she was Chief Internet Officer for tech and gaming publisher Ziff Davis Media, as well as president of Ziff Davis Internet. In that role, Millard helped launch the smaller publisher's move to digital distribution.

Magazine executives are not the only print species to migrate online.

Two years ago, Monster hired Peter Newton, a Boston Globe vet, as senior vice president for small and medium businesses--a position where he has subsequently pioneered Monster's initiatives to share classified listings with newspapers. In the more distant past, the Los Angeles Times' electronic classifieds boss Ellen Siminoff left the company in 1995 to help found the executive board of Yahoo.