TechCrunch's Michael Arrington and The Wall Street Journal report that search engine giant YouTube and Google are in talks where the latter will buy the former for $1.6 billion.
If this deal is consumated, my prediction is it will cause a wave of mergers and acquistions between "Web 2.0" companies, particularly those which are video distributors. The number of video distribution companies seems to grow each week; my view is that we will have 140 by this time net year.
That would happen even with the wave, but I don't see that process accelerating until late 2007.