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"It's a done deal.  Google bought YouTube.  All the details were as reported this morning: $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction, making this Google's biggest buy in its 8 year history.  YouTube will continue to be independent, while the company and its 65 employees will remain in San Bruno, CA.  As for synergies between the two companies, Google plans to leverage its \"advertiser relationships\" - the plan to combine Google Adsense for Video with Google Video might also carry over to YouTube.  Both companies approved the deal earlier today, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2006.  The announcement is here.\nGoogle and YouTube are currently holding a webcast on the topic featuring Google CEO Eric Schmidt, YouTube CEO Chad Hurley, YouTube CTO Steve Chen and Google\u2019s General Counsel David Drummond.  You can drop in here (update: call is now finished).  Schmidt repeats the phrase that he always rolls out for such events: the YouTube acquisition is part of Google's ongoing mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.  This roughly translates as \"Google's mission to put ads on as much content as possible\".  A caller asks why it was an all stock deal, and why Google didn't just expand on Google Video.  Drummond (?) says that a stock deal would be tax free, and Schmidt says Google admired the YouTube offering.  The basic theme seems to be that YouTube will benefit from Google's ad platform when it comes to monetization.  Google search will also \"improve the search experience\" for YouTube users.  YouTube's copyright identification system should be rolled out within a month, says Hurley.\nKey point: Google Video won't go away ever - in fact, it will become a stronger part of Google.  A caller also asks some great questions: did the MySpace deal have any effect?  Was there a bidding war?  No direct answer to these questions, alas.  A new caller asks about Chad's promise to stay independent, and what caused him to change his mind.  He responds by saying that Google has more resources.  Follow-up question: will there be a name change for YouTube?  Answer: no, both sites will continue independently.  Wrapping up: this is the next stage in the evolution of the Internet, and a natural next step.  All in all, it's mainly corporate speak, but the promise to continue running the two services separately should reassure some users.\nThe recorded call should be available to download soon.\nSmiles All Round, Facebook Deal Soon?\nThis is great news for YouTube, and a good move for Google: I'm willing to bet that we'll look back on this as a good value buy.  YouTube is likely to be bigger than MySpace, in my opinion, and will justify the $1.65 billion.  I still half-wish that Chad had gone it alone, but earning hundreds of millions in just over a year is too good an offer to turn down, especially when faced with so much uncertainty about the future.  I also expect to see some action on the Facebook-Yahoo deal very soon (or if Yahoo doesn't act, someone else will).  With YouTube now exceeding its $1.5 billion valuation, Facebook will almost certainly go for $1 billion or more.  I'm not as convinced of Facebook's future success as I am of YouTube's, but it's the only big player remaining in the social networking space."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2006/10/09/confirmed-google-buys-youtube/>