Way back in the very earliest days of Google (News - Alert), when the company was operating out of a garage in Menlo Park, California, a woman named Susan Wojcicki was a big part of the operation. Not only was she Google employee number 16, but it was also her garage from which Google operated. It's been a long time since the garage days, and Susan Wojcicki has likewise gone up in stature along with the company. In fact, she just went from senior vice president for Google entirely to become the new head of its YouTube (News - Alert) unit, according to current reports.

Wojcicki takes over for Salar Kamangar, employee number nine and YouTube's head since 2010, who in turn was set to move into a different role within Google proper. Additionally, the two who served directly under Kamangar, Robert Kyncl and Shishir Mehrotra, were both promoted following the successful stint within YouTube. While most had figured that Mehrotra would step in to take over for Kamangar, bringing in Wojcicki instead actually solves a wider problem at Google.

Recently, Wojcicki had found her responsibilities within Google divided, as Google brought in Sridhar Ramaswamy to head up commerce initiatives, under which advertising would certainly fall. Wojcicki, in turn, was at last report considering running her own operation, and had been targeted by recruiters and potentially even for a CEO role elsewhere. But since big changes were somewhat slow in coming at Google—reports suggest Larry Page's last big change was putting Sundar Pichai from Chrome in charge of the Android (News - Alert) unit—Wojcicki may well have been tempted away.

But Wojcicki's tenure as YouTube's new head won't be without trouble, and right away as well. Not only are there issues of content—the recent issues of copyright law, for example, that led to several major channels being hit with copyright violation citations for producing video game-related video—but there are also issues with both advertisers and videomakers in terms of money. Advertisers would like YouTube to be more like a standard television network, while videomakers are concerned about the difficulty inherent in making money on YouTube even with videos with huge amounts of views.

While the exact amounts of money made on YouTube are up for most anyone's guess—eMarketer (News - Alert) estimates suggest that the company made $5.6 billion in ad revenue just in 2013, but Google doesn't bring out the books for YouTube much—the visitor numbers are staggering. Reports suggest over one billion users monthly hit the site, and nearly half—40 percent—come via phone or tablet, which makes a huge population of advertising targets and some big potential gains.

Putting Wojcicki in charge at YouTube seems to be something of a mixed blessing. While she clearly understands the issues related to Google and advertising, she's also been a very low-profile leader overall, not exactly what some were hoping for in terms of someone who could really land face-time with advertisers and content makers alike. But she has been very big on YouTube in general, being a “strong proponent” of the decision to buy YouTube back in 2006. She's got a good idea of what advertising can do in this case, and how important it is to keep the content flowing accordingly.

Putting Wojcicki in charge of YouTube may not have been the best move given the situation YouTube faces—particularly in light of growing competition—but it's not likely to prove a bad move either. Only time will tell just how it all comes out, but YouTube's future looks at least reasonably bright.