Could an Ex-Yahoo Exec Kill Veoh?

I like Veoh founding CEO Dmitry Shapiro. His independence from mass media mindsets, his focus on user experience over content control, made Veoh what it is today: my second-favorite video site after YouTube, poised to make organic online video as easy to watch as fabricated TV shows.

That’s why I’m terribly wary of Veoh taking on ex-Yahoo exec Steve Mitgang as CEO, with Shapiro becoming Chief Innovation Officer. Mitgang was the Yahoo SVP behind Project Panama, Yahoo’s new ad contextualization system which just refuses to take off. Just the fact that he’s from Yahoo, the company that’s only now shaking off its massive old media baggage after years of getting its ass kicked by Google, is troubling in itself.

Since I’m still seeing innovation in Veoh’s products, I’ll give Mitgang the benefit of the doubt for now. If I see Veoh start to become like Joost (”your old man’s TV” as Shapiro calls it), if I see Steve Mitgang becoming a little Terry Semel, then Veoh will get less play from me. We should watch this guy carefully to make sure he doesn’t turn Veoh into an idiot box.