Google Buys YouTube for $1.65 Billon

After roomers spilled around the web last week about Google offering $1.65 Billion to buy YouTube, this offer had been confirmed and YouTube has accepted. This announcement makes me wonder what will become of Google's own video hosting service. YouTube clearly has more users than Google Video, which would make me think that Google would want to merge its service into YouTube's. However, I personally prefer Google's flash video player and site interface over YouTube's. I think it would be best for the company to maintain both services separate, much like Yahoo did when they acquired Flickr. However, I wouldn't be surprised if some features, such as the ability to download videos, found their way onto YouTub. I am eagerly awaiting a post to Google's blog based on this subject. Update: Interestingly, no Google blog post on this topic, however they have released a press release on this topic and it appears that Google will handle this acquisition as I anticipated. Both YouTube and Google Video will continue to run independently.

Labels: Google, Google Video, YouTube