Google-YouTube: Deal Done for $1.78 billion

On November 14, 06, Google announced that they have completed the acquisition of YouTube. Based on the closing price of $481.03 per share, the deal is already worth $1.775 billion to YouTube’s shareholders.

But the combination of a YouTube copyright crackdown and increased competition could mean that YouTube may find it difficult to stay on top indefinitely, writes via CNN Money. Online video competitors are taking different approaches:

• Metacafe (Oct. traffic 3.8 million users) is trying to differentiate itself from YouTube by offering creators of user-generated content the ability to get paid based on how many page views their videos generate.
• Revver (Oct. traffic 262,000 visitors) inserts one-frame advertisements at the end of videos and shares the ad revenue with the creators.
• VideoEgg is trying to be more of a partner with larger firms as opposed to a destination site for user videos. In addition to tools, VideoEgg has also developed an online video ad platform that's used by social networking sites such as Bebo, Dogster and Tagged.