Forget about an IPO, let's just get YouTube sold right now. Fortunately, Russell Shaw has come up with a list of potential suitors. It includes (drumroll, please!): Adobe, Google, Sony, Time-Warner, News Corp. and Yahoo. I'm don't think Adobe or Sony should be on the list, while I'd be surprised if Time-Warner made such a bold move. As for Google, it's not one to make big, flashy deals. So that leaves Yahoo and Rupert Murdoch. If I was a betting man, I wouldn't be surprised for Rupert called YouTube CEO Chad Hurley for a chat soon. Before any kind of deal - or IPO - is consummated, YouTube will have to tackle is the sticky issue of copyright infringement given more content owners are asking for their content to be removed as YouTube gets more popular.
Update: The Guardian has a story that YouTube overtook MySpace as the most popular "new generation. According to Alexa, YouTube has 3.9% of global Internet visits each day compared with 3.35% for MySpace.