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YouTube 2.0 Rachel Rosmarin, 10.09.06, 5:47 PM ET Burlingame, Calif. -YouTube’s officially off the market, much to the disappointment of media moguls everywhere. Google is buying the videoclip-sharing destination for $1.65 billion in stock, the companies said Monday. For Google, the deal has been an immediate success and a big hit with investors. While $1.6 billion may seem like a lot to spend, it really isn't--not when the deal is all stock. Shares of Google gained $8.50 on news of the deal today, driving the company's market capitalization up by more than $2 billion. So at least for the day, Google made more than $400 million on this deal. Still, there are a couple of immediate challenges posed by this transaction. First, there's some explaining to be done to Google's new partner, News Corp. (nyse: NWS - news - people ) Google agreed to pay News Corp. $900 million to put its advertising systems to work on MySpace and other Rupert Murdoch-owned Web sites. Despite some differences, YouTube and MySpace are both after the same thing--pulling together communities of users and getting them to post content. Are they on a collision course? Seems likely. The other problem that may be coming is the likelihood that YouTube is going to keep Google's lawyers and engineers very busy trying to keep copyrighted material off the site or fighting with copyright holders. Again, despite many promises that all of this is going to get worked out, the problems--both legal and technical--are substantial. And thus far, no one has any real answers. Those are problems that companies like Viacom (nyse: VIA - news - people ) and Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ), which were both reportedly interested in YouTube, would like to have. But now is no time to wallow--there are plenty of fish in the sea. Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), Time-Warner (nyse: TWX - news - people ), the Walt Disney Co. (nyse: DIS - news - people ) and NBC could also be looking to refine their video strategies, and there are enough possible acquisition targets to lend every Internet portal and media conglomerate a strategic hand. With YouTube, Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) went after a ready-made audience. More online video viewers flock to YouTube than to any other site, according to Hitwise. That's in large part because YouTube has the most videos. But sheer size isn’t the only reason to acquire a video startup. Some of the dozens of tiny companies populating the Web harbor unusual tools and business models that haven’t hit it big, yet could become secret weapons. None of the big video sites has figured out how to make a popular and useful video search engine that searches the entire Web for relevant movies. Neither have they been able to avoid the high costs associated with hosting videos on company servers. And it’s been tough to find a way to show ads on a video site that doesn’t annoy viewers. If today’s video startups don’t solve these problems completely, tomorrow’s might. There may be hundreds of these companies today, but in a few years there will be thousands, says Dmitry Shapiro, founder and chief executive of Youtube competitor Veoh, who likens the state of video on the Web today to the early days of the Internet. “It's like we’re in the 1994 of video, and YouTube is Geocities--a very early success.”

[Forbes News] YouTube 2.0