Google’s $1.65 billion acqusition of YouTube was naturally a popular subject of discussion on the blogosphere on Monday.  Here are some selected comments from industry experts.

John Battelle, Google-expert and author of ”The Search” pointed to possible brand management challenges as Google and YouTube come under the same roof:

” I am mixed on this. I think it's wise to frame this as "the companies will stay separate" kind of acquisition, even if in the end that's not the intent. But this marks Google's first significant ‘out of brand’ acquisition, the company's first true brand-management challenge.”

Former Internet analyst turned blogger, Henry Blodget, views the fact that YouTube-founder accepting being payed in stock instead of cash as “on balance, amid the Yahoo-problem-or-industry-problem worries, probably a positive stamp of approval on Google's current business trends.”

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, the blog that broke the story that a deal was in the making last week, said that he wants to know more about what will happen to Google’s relationship with Fox. According to a source inside of Fox, which owns MySpace, they were surprised that Google was aggressively pursuing a deal with YouTube, given Google’s nearly $1 billion advertising relationship with MySpace:

“Google is in a precarious position. Fox could, subject to the terms of their agreement with Google, take their search business to Yahoo or Microsoft, who would be eager to take the deal. They could bury YouTube in copyright litigation which at the very least would require YouTube to pull down Fox content. And finally, MySpace could flip a switch and kill much of YouTube’s current traffic.”

Arrington believes that Fox, Universal, Viacom, NBC and the other large copyright holders are going to join forces and create a new YouTube competitor.

“Instead of entering into revenue share agreements with YouTube/Google, they could simply pull their content, create a YouTube clone quickly using Adobe’s Flash technology, and make their content available there instead. YouTube would be dead in the water (some estimates suggest that up to 80% of YouTube’s traffic is generated from copyright infringing content).”

Related Links:
http://www.techcrunch.com
http://www.internetoutsider.com
http://battellemedia.com
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