Mogul City Media & Entertainment Group

Sony’s $65 million acquisition of online video sharing start-up Grouper has ignited another play at the “Who will buy YouTube” game. This version of the game includes a bonus question: How much will be (over) paid? CNET’s “YouTube could be a steal at $1 billion” states: 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 someone were to buy YouTube tomorrow, what would they have to pay? DMReview’s definition of “Market Share”: A company’s sales expressed as a percentage of the sales for the total industry. YouTube doesn’t have 43% market share of sales for any industry...