Sony's acquisition Wednesday of Grouper, which owns less than 1 percent of the online video market, begs a rather obvious question about its far larger rival YouTube, which owns 43 percent market share: If a company were to buy YouTube tomorrow, what would it have to pay?
"The viral video space is so hot right now; it's like Hansel from the movie 'Zoolander,'" said Aram Sinnreich, managing partner of RadarResearch, referring to the 2001 comedy about competition in the modeling business. "I wouldn't be surprised to see (online video market leader) YouTube receive a bid of $1 billion. Whether the company is worth it is another question."
Video-sharing sites allow the public to post homemade videos to the Web, where the videos' creators can be seen dancing, singing, acting, joking and lip-syncing. If that doesn't sound like much of a business, consider that more than 200 companies now present some kind of user-submitted content, and that teens and young adults are flocking to these sites.

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