YouTube could be a steal at $1 billion

By agreeing to pay $65 million for Grouper–a profitless video-sharing company with negligible market share–Sony has helped establish a benchmark for other companies in the space and sent industry insiders speculating wildly about what market leader YouTube may be worth. 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?

Wow, $65M for a site that owns 1% of the marketshare?