Can big media take on the mighty Google?

-LENN HINDSMANN When Google swallowed Youtube in a $1.6 billion deal, it set off the online video race. Big media companies knew it would take loads of cash and new technology to go up against the internet monster, so some of them teamed up and some decided to go it alone. Now it looks like there is some kind of joint goal among big media and the major internet companies who stand beside them to crush Google. But will Google CEO Eric Schmidt even give them the chance to catch up? While the big media guys are busy trying to figure out how to challenge Google’s Youtube, Schmidt has been building the company via some smart and key acquisitions quietly moving into traditional media territory. Maybe this is exactly what Schmidt wants, so while big media leaves their back door unguarded he can slip right in and catch them by surprise. One by one, the big media companies and the Internet giants have started to ante up for the big poker game over the future of the video content business. Google started it all with its acquisition of YouTube. Then GE’s NBC-Universal and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. responded by joining forces to create “NewCo,” which Comcast, the country’s largest cable company, also just joined. Sumner Redstone’s CBS followed with the announcement of their own independent distribution initiative, called the “CBS Interactive Audience Network”. Standing alongside these big media giants are all the biggest Internet portals, including Yahoo!, AOL , and MSN. What has essentially happened, in a very short period, is that most of the existing Internet and media establishment have lined up on one side of the fence in support of each other, all against GooTube! Viacom Needs to Team Up With Google, Rather Than Sue It [SeekingAlpha]