More executive turnover in video sharing

Metacafe is the latest video-sharing site to see a shake-up in its executive ranks.

One of the top 10 sites in a category dominated by YouTube, privately held Metacafe is expected to announce Wednesday that Erick Hachenburg, a former executive at Electronic Arts, is replacing Arik Czerniak as CEO, according to a company spokeswoman.

Czerniak will remain with Metacafe, but his change of status closely follows similar departures in the video sharing realm: Guba's Thomas McInerney and Revver cofounders Ian Smith and Oliver Luckett have left their companies in the past three months.

White hot though it may be when it comes to generating headlines, video sharing has become synonymous with one company. YouTube is sees almost half of the traffic to sites that allow users to post videos to the Web.

This stranglehold on the market not only has prompted management shake-ups, it has inspired some companies to venture into other areas. San Diego-based vMix, for example, recently announced that it had launched a service to help companies offer user-generated video, audio, blogs and ratings. The Tribune Company was vMix'x first customer.

Analysts have predicted that many firms chasing YouTube won't survive the year.

Yahoo was rumored late last year to be interested in acquiring Metacafe, founded in Israel. No deal ever materialized.