Google Going for YouTube Gold

YouTube has always been a “nice to have” property for Google. The traffic, the domination of a segment, the feather in a cap that is oddly shy of very many (even though the feathers that do rest in Google’s cap are huge feathers) – it’s always been one of those things with a load of potential but a lack of forward movement on the revenue side.

Google is changing their tune in 2011, as promised. After declaring intentions to increase staffing by 30%, it is now clear what most of these new hires are going to be doing: sales. One has only to look at their current Advertising Sales and Customer Support Job Board to know that gold is the goal in 2011.

On top of that, they have added YouTube as an option to be bid upon on their display network advertising platform.

“YouTube has proven it can flourish in a model where there is more autonomy, and in that way I think it is an example and a potential model for other areas of the business,” said new YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar.

Is the sleeping giant being woken up? That seems to be the case and it would take major missteps on Google’s part to mess this one up. As one of the top 3 most used sites on the Internet (or top 5, depending on which metric you use) and with a medium that demands a longer attention span per page than most, YouTube is poised to be a huge money maker.

Can Google bring home the gold this year?