Peter Kafka

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Discovery Vet Kelly Day Is Blip’s New Boss

Web video distributor Blip has a new CEO: Discovery’s Kelly Day, who had been at the cable network for seven years, most recently as the head of its U.S. Web sites and e-commerce.

Day takes the spot vacated by Blip founder Mike Hudack, who left the company last fall. She’s one of several top hires with traditional media credentials that the Web video company has made in recent years.

COO Steve Brookstein, who joined a year ago, spent most of his career at cable providers like Comcast. And sales chief Evan Gotlib came to Blip after stints at Conde Nast, Time Inc. and Disney.

Blip was one of many Web video start-ups created in the wake of YouTube, and it deserves credit simply for sticking around since then. Blip’s co-founders were smart enough not to make it a (would-be) YouTube competitor, and focused instead on helping video creators distribute and sell their stuff on other sites.

By last year, that business was generating around $10 million a year, and Blip now says the clips it distributes generate around 300 million video views a month. Which sounds big, unless you compare it to YouTube, which generates four billion views a day.

Blip doesn’t need to worry about YouTube’s scale, per se, but it does need to pay attention to the video giant’s renewed focus on “professional” content. That means clips from Hollywood talent, but also from the new breed of Web video natives that Blip has made its living helping out.

Last year, YouTube bought onetime Blip rival Next New Networks, specifically so it could increase its outreach to video creators. This year, it upped the ante by leasing out a huge warehouse complex in L.A., where it will provide studio space and advice to video creators. Day has her work cut out for her.

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I’m a giant vat of creative juices.

— David Pogue on why he’s joining Yahoo