Continuing to ramp up its video hosting and syndication business, Google has poached Michael Steib, NBC Universal's general manager of strategic ventures. Led by Steib's strategic ventures unit, NBC
Universal in September created the National Broadband Company, or NBBC, to distribute video programming to various Internet sites in direct competition with Google. The Google spokesman said no
official title has been given to Steib yet, but that he will lead a new ad sales team under the direction of Tim Armstrong, Google's advertising sales head. Google's ambitions to compete in the
burgeoning video space were made clear late last year when it acquired video-sharing startup YouTube for $1.65 billion.
