Google, finally confirmed the purchase of YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock options after TechCrunch first surfaced the rumor as, "40% likely to be at least partially true." It was a covered by just about everyone and their brother so I am going to keep this article fairly brief. Some might think YouTube is a ridiculous gamble on video working out online. Others might criticize YouTube for its wealth of copyrighted and pirated content. However, it is very likely Google will address both of these concerns.
As the number of people that realize that they are paying for cable television and only watching one or two channels the trend to cancel their cable should increase. Since YouTube is currently a popular place for the masses to watch "on demand" and video content online so they are positioned well to absorb these cable cancelers. A number of television networks like CBS are dabbling online by locking up channels online. This will most likely continue and further push the online video movement to a tipping point. To help clean-up the wealth of copyrighted and pirated content Google recently signed content deals to position itself to surface licensed content. However, Google is going to have to be cautious as to how they clean up YouTube, which compares to Napster which was a pirated mess of content before it was shut down and eventually cleaned up.
Bottom-line: The important thing to remember is that YouTube currently has brand recognition and the attention of with mainstream audiences. This has value, $1.65
billion of value in this case - paid for the attention of the YouTube audience.