Impact of Google's purchase of YouTube on publishing

Google has acquired the online video website YouTube for $1.65 billion. Besides giving a hat tip to fellow PayPal alumni Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, I should point out that publishers need to follow this closely. By scanning and cataloguing the contents of books, Google is already changing the way people learn about books in spite of the opposition of some in the publishing industry. Now that it will be hosting videos as well, Google has the chance to deliver relevant news stories, blog posts, videos, and even book content when users run searches about books or the topics of books. In other words, publishing increasingly looks less about putting words onto bound paper and more about providing multimedia content. Google isn't the only catalyst in this trend, but it is perhaps the most important.

YouTube cofounders Chad Hurley, 29, left, and Steven Chen, 27, pose for a photo with their laptops at their office loft in a San Mateo, Calif. file photo from March 29, 2006. (Copyright 2006 Associated Press)