Audio & Video

Google to Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion

by J. Angelo Racoma
written by J. Angelo Racoma

It’s been confirmed, folks. Google is set to acquire YouTube. And the price? It’s even higher than the original estimate of $1 billion!

Here’s the Google Press Release.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., October 9, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube, the consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience, for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.

Google is banking on YouTube’s success in terms of userbase and community. YouTube, meanwhile, will benefit from Google’s existing advertiser relations. So there is a business model, after all.

My only concern at this point is on copyrighted content that’s already on YouTube. Does this mean they will be more actively purging the site of copyrighted content? And does this mean that copyright owners will start taking legal action?

Here’s an analysis of the reasons and implications of the acquisition on ForeverGeek.

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J. Angelo Racoma is an economist by profession and IT executive by occupation. He served the Philippine government for three years before moving on to join a leading firm in the local ICT industry. Having a passion for writing since his more youthful days, Angelo has been active in the online community since the time he operated his own Bulletin Board System (the Cyber County BBS) in the mid-1990’s, to actively participating in online tech forums, and now authoring his own blog, the J Spot, which he started late 2003. This personal publisher regularly and frequently posts commentaries on information technology, business, economics, politics and government, public relations, and family matters. A present personal advocacy is to increase local awareness and accessibility to alternative/I.P.-based means of content distribution. Angelo is married to educator Caren Marie Guevara, with whom he has two daughters, Sofia Bernice and Agatha Clarisse.