• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, November 29, 2005

Google this morning announced that entertainment industry veteran Ann Mather has joined its board of directors, where she will chair the audit committee.

Mather, an accountant as well as a director on the board of the Central European Media Enterprises, brings some Hollywood glamour to Google's board of directors. She has held executive positions at Steve Jobs' Pixar, Village Roadshow Pictures, and the Walt Disney Company--and also has a background in the retail industry.

By contrast, her colleagues on the audit committee, Michael Moritz and Paul Otellini, have more conventional Silicon Alley pedigrees: Moritz is a partner in Sequoia Capital and an investor in Google, while Otellini is CEO of Intel Corp.

Could her appointment signal that Google's serious about forging alliances with the entertainment world? When it comes to expanding beyond search, Google has many options, but one that has surfaced repeatedly in recent months has been the possibility of distributing video.

CBS, in talks with Google about possible distribution deals, already made streams of the UPN show "Everybody Hates Chris" available through Google. The search giant also expressed interest in acquiring a piece of AOL, which has a trove of video content at the ready.

While Google has done well for itself with search ads, many industry observers are waiting to see what the company will do for a second act. Given Mather's appointment, a move into broadband video now seems like one of the likelier possibilities.