PressEthic

Google's recent acquistion of YouTube has prompted a frenzy of coverage speculating on the direction of online media and the future of competitors. Reuters reported that YouTube has 45 percent of the online video market, which is more than the next four competitors combined. MySpace is ranked second in online video searches and has an advertising and search deal with Google as well.

This merger presents a substantial dilemma for competitors such as Microsoft and Yahoo and could spark innovative developments in the online video market.

"There doesn't seem to be an obvious property out there for Yahoo or Microsoft to go after for an acquisition," said Troy Mastin, an analyst at William Blair & Co. "I think an obvious response does not exist outside further investment in their internal properties."

However, even more interesting than the impact that this partnership will have on Google's competitors is the incredible sum that the search engine paid for YouTube in the first place. On her media blog, Susan Mernit looks at what this purchase indicates about the future of media.

That news got me thinking about what Google mighta coulda bought with their money and didn't, and I got to asking myself where the paradigm shift was in that.

For instance, with that kind of dough, Google could have bought the New York Times Company. ...

But no--they didn't, did they--and the decision to spend all this money on YouTube shows that the coffin nails of mainstream media are already strewn across the open grave.

It's debatable whether this purchase functions as yet another warning that mainstream media is headed for the wayside. However, it's certainly indicative of a larger shift in in the power that the younger demographic wields with online forums.

This is yet more evidence how social media platforms are shifting the paradigms in a profound way--Not only does YouTube have a mass market, it's video on the web appeal that the more high-brow Times will never have...And, most cruelly, it's something that teens and twenty-somethings care about, which may no longer be the case for The New York Times.