Google to buy YouTube: or how to do a really good Internet rumour

TechCrunch have started a rumour (OK, solid news based on something someone said somewhere) which I found via Tech’s Message: namely that Google could be gearing up to buy YouTube.

Now, apart from the obvious traffic that this generates for TechCrunch, this might not be as fanciful as it first seems. Though Tech’s Message has reported that a billionaire by the name of Mark Cuban said that ‘only a moron would buy YouTube’, that surely doesn’t apply to Google.

We’ve already seen Yahoo! taking over other potentially competing video services, and online video sharing sites are hot property at the moment (even if they are still quite difficult to monetise and are nasty legal minefields). Google Videos and YouTube are competitors – why not have the might of Google take over YouTube?

Whether this is good for the consumer is another matter. I suppose it depends whether Google would keep the two entities separate (better) or merge them somehow. I think YouTube is a stronger brand than Google Videos.

The going rate? Oh just $1.5bn – $2bn.

Let’s pretend this isn’t still a rumour, and that the consumer is the most important factor here (of course). Would this be good for us? For video sharing sites in general? What do you reckon?