CNN is reporting that Google has agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock; not a bad price for a company started in February 2005. YouTube controls about half of the online video market, with over 100 million clips downloaded each day, and will offer new advertising opportunities for the search-based Internet behemoth.

Paradoxically, this merger does little to change the Internet’s democratization of media. Because the content is driven by users and not dictated from above, the entire nature of YouTube cannot be controlled in any meaningful way. Even if YouTube tried, someone would just come along and create a newer, freer, better site. Compare this to traditional media: if Clear Channel bought up more radio stations, people would (or at least should) be up in arms about the lack of options.

But perhaps Google is just following the advice of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) who once famously said, “the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes…”

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See Also: Could YouTube Be A Marxist Plot?,View Night Sky in Google Earth,Google Moon,

This entry was posted by Jeffrey Goodman on Monday, October 9th, 2006 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Social Change, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.