YouTube monetization chief departs

Update 7:59 a.m. PDT June 4: Comment from Cooliris added.

Shashi Seth, the executive leading the effort to make money from video-sharing site YouTube, has left Google, the company confirmed Thursday.

"Shashi was a valued member of both the Google and YouTube teams, and we wish him well in his new endeavors," the company said in a statement. Asked about plans for his replacement, the company said, "We have a talented team leading our monetization efforts at YouTube, and we are excited about the future."

The departure was reported Tuesday by Om Malik, who said Seth now is chief revenue officer of Cooliris. That Kleiner-Perkins-funded start-up is the developer of PicLens, a swoopy and dynamic browser tool for looking at photos.

Cooliris confirmed the move, too. "We're glad to have Seth on board at Cooliris," said Alec Jeong of the company.

YouTube monetization is job No. 1 at Google, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has declared. Google is working on new YouTube ad options, and it recently added a YouTube buzz targeting option that lets advertisers place ads on videos that are gaining fast in popularity.

[benjaminstraight]

A loss for YouTube.