Wow.
Google shares cracked through the $500 barrier for the first time today, hitting a high of $505.72 in mid-morning trading. Google's market capitalization is now a staggering $153.5-billion. According to Bloomberg, there are six other companies trading above $500, including Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Washington Post Co.
    So what does $500 mean other than being a really, really big number? For one, it provides Google with the "currency" to make a major acquisition, although the biggest deal made by Google so far is the recent $1.6-billion purchase of YouTube. For some perspective, Google's market cap is larger than eBay ($47-billion), Yahoo ($36.7-billion), IAC/Interactive Corp. ($10-billion) combined. $500 also makes a lot of smart institutional investors, who shunned Google's $85 a share IPO, look pretty silly. (Can anyone believe Google was forced to drop its IPO pricing to $85 to $95 from its original goal of $108 to $135?!) I guess The only downside about $500 is it's an expensive stock to purchase, which could see Google to do 10:1 or 5:1 stock split.
Update: Somebody better watch Jim Cramer; his enthusiasm for Google may cause some heart woes., while the New York Times reports there are only 13 companies worth more than Google.

The latest issue of Wired Magazine (a healthy 284-pages, including the holiday buying guide) arrived today with a cover story on YouTube ("YouTube Grows Up"). I haven't got around to reading it yet but it got me thinking about the many similarities between YouTube and Napster.
Both services came out of nowhere and quickly became popular with millions of users looking for free content. Napster, unfortunately, incurred the wrath of the music industry, which was far from prepared to consider the idea of selling music on the Web. On the other hand, YouTube's popularity came at a time when the large content producers, broadcasters, etc. had already realized there was a new distribution model to be leveraged even if the business models weren't fully-baked yet. While Napster got lawsuit-ed into oblivision (well, neutered and eventually sold to Roxio as a shell of its former self), YouTube was snapped up by Google for $1.6-billion, and its founders - Chad Hurley and Steve Chen - are hailed as entrepreneurs heroes.
So what's the difference between the two players? Napster was clearly ahead of its time, and the music industry didn't have the time, energy or creatively to counter-attack or strike a deal with Shawn Fanning. Meanwhile, YouTube's time was/is nearly perfect because everyone knew video was going to be big on the Web, and had started to gear up for it. It didn't hurt that Apple launched the video iPod, which hammered home the "hello, video is here" message.
Another difference is YouTube has been able to reach licensing agreements with content owners, while Napster failed to bring any of the major labels onside. Of course, it's still left to be seen whether Google can turn YouTube into a business (aside from making it yet another platform for AdSense). I wonder whether Napster would have enjoyed the same kind of adoration if Fanning had started it in late-2004 or late-2005 rather than 1999. Would it have made a difference? Would the record labels have embraced it as an exciting new way to distribute content? Who knows, it might have even been a legitimate rival to iTunes.
For more thoughts, check out Peter Cashmore, eHub and, of course, Mark Cuban.