April has certainly been an interesting month for (now dubbed) social entertainment website Hi5.  After breaking new from VentureBeat and Techcrunch reported that the social portal had failed to receive additional funding, things weren’t looking so good.  Hold that thought for 48 hours, and Hi5 jumped back into the game and headlines with their announcement of a partnership with Mochi Media.  Well, just to round out the month with a bit more news about Hi5, they’ve recently announced the appointment of a new CEO, Bill Gossman.

Gossman, former CEO of Audience Science, CEO of Sabrix and founder and COO/CFO of  @mobile, as well as a current executive in residence at Mohr Davidow Ventures, hi5’s main investor, brings his wealth of experience in online advertising, behavioral targeting, and additional forms of online audience monetization.

“The founding team at hi5 has built a tremendous asset in one of the world’s largest online communities, and a truly global distribution and monetization platform for games and other social entertainment content,” said Gossman. “I’m excited to be joining the organization to help leverage that asset by focusing on our continued leadership in the social entertainment space and building a scalable, highly profitable business.”

So another layoff at Hi5?  Not quite.  Ramu Yalamanchi, founder and CEO since the companies beginnings in 2003 will not focus his efforts on operational responsibilities and leading the product and engineering departments.  His new goal is to deliver innovative features that set hi5 apart from competitors in the social entertainment space, with a heavy focus on expanding hi5’s microtransaction infrastructure and maximizing revenues.  Not a bad thought for a company who’s recent round of funding fell through, however, interesting to note that the new CEO comes from one of hi5′s primary investors.

“It is great to have Bill joining hi5 at this exciting stage of our business,” said Yalamanchi. “We have been incredibly successful in building a huge global audience and pioneering the social entertainment space. Bill brings highly applicable, stage-relevant leadership experience, particularly in monetizing online traffic and building scalable sales organizations, that will help take our company to the next level.”