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Number 5 Most-Read Post in 2006: One of these six companies will buy YouTube

This week, I have been counting down the Top 10 most-read items on this blog during 2006. Checking our server logs, I see that Number 5 is: "One of these six companies will buy YouTube.
Written by Russell Shaw, Contributor
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This week, I have been counting down the Top 10 most-read items on this blog during 2006.

Checking our server logs, I see that Number 5 is: "One of these six companies will buy YouTube."

When I wrote this post back on July 31, the common assumption was that because most of YouTube's clips were of dubious copyright compliance, they would be sued into oblivion and no deep-pocketed technology or media company would swoop down to their rescue and buy them up.

Buy them up for the $1 billion+ price tag that some had quoted.

Oh, but I did I ever see the potential for a tech giant or media company to come in, clean up the copyright problems, form media alliances and then use YouTube as a highly effective distribution platform for allied media content providers. Oh, and keep the spirit alive by keeping YouTube's functionality alive for the masses of all those DVCam-owners out there.

I named Google as one of these six companies. Picked Yahoo! first, and they did kick the tires but I did say "one of these six companies."

About Google, I wrote:

"Google’s videos are receiving signficant promotion, and the addition of YouTube would help there as well. Also, consider what the integration of Google’s search utilities and YouTube content could offer"

Two months after this post, guess what happened. Google bought YouTube for $1.6 billion.

I was pretty much right.

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