Report: Google in talks to buy YouTube – Yahoo! News
Internet search leader Google Inc. is in talks to acquire the popular online video site YouTube Inc. for about $1.6 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Mountain View-based Google and San Mateo-based YouTube are still at a sensitive stage in the discussion, the newspaper reported on its Web site.The blog TechCrunch had reported on rumors of the acquisition talks. Representatives from Google and YouTube did not immediately return calls to The Associated Press.
Founded in February 2005 by three former employees of eBay Inc.’s PayPal electronic-payment unit, YouTube is surging thanks to the increased availability of high-speed Internet connections and gadgets such as camera phones and digital cameras capable of taking video. Most of YouTube offerings are short amateur clips, although professional filmmakers and even television networks have posted materials.
YouTube users watch more that 100 million videos daily, and the site’s market share tops that of similar services offered by Google and other popular Web sites, according to some research firms.
When rumors circulated earlier this year that some major media companies were interested in buying YouTube, the company’s chief executive, Chad Hurley, said the company was not for sale and a future initial public offering was possible.
This has been talked about for a long time, and I truthfully didn’t put much value in that. Mind, Google Video has been taking a lot of lessons from YouTube, so they may be looking at it as a way to go with people who have been doing it well. As for the name… that was more of a joke. ie. combining Google and YouTube.
Google in June had reported they had 10 Billion in reserves… but they’ve always been cautious so I can’t see them spending too much for YouTube if they did buy it. They may instead just broker a deal to be able to include their catalog in their own Google Video search.
Edit: I had made the name GooTube up as sort of a lark, but it looks like I wasn’t the only one with the idea. I just ran acrossed the logo to the right on another blog.
Tags: Financial, Google, Interesting, Video, YouTube
