Google to buy YouTube: or how to do a really good Internet rumour

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TechCrunch have started a rumour (OK, solid news based on something someone said somewhere) which I found via Tech’s Message: namely that Google could be gearing up to buy YouTube.

Now, apart from the obvious traffic that this generates for TechCrunch, this might not be as fanciful as it first seems. Though Tech’s Message has reported that a billionaire by the name of Mark Cuban said that ‘only a moron would buy YouTube’, that surely doesn’t apply to Google.

We’ve already seen Yahoo! taking over other potentially competing video services, and online video sharing sites are hot property at the moment (even if they are still quite difficult to monetise and are nasty legal minefields). Google Videos and YouTube are competitors – why not have the might of Google take over YouTube?

Whether this is good for the consumer is another matter. I suppose it depends whether Google would keep the two entities separate (better) or merge them somehow. I think YouTube is a stronger brand than Google Videos.

The going rate? Oh just $1.5bn – $2bn.

Let’s pretend this isn’t still a rumour, and that the consumer is the most important factor here (of course). Would this be good for us? For video sharing sites in general? What do you reckon?

Andy Merrett
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One thought on “Google to buy YouTube: or how to do a really good Internet rumour

  • When Google buys YouTube (if they do) it will be like going out with a girl with 3 illegitimite kids and a broken down car…. baggage baggage! YouTube has a ton of outstanding lawsuits for copyright infringement after users free willingly record their favorite television shows and upload them to YouTube for millions to share. YouTube kind of reminds me of Napster just with videos. I talked with someone at Google and because I wasn’t well known yet, they decline to comment. Sorry guys. I’ll work on being more controversial.

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