Google Inc. paid $1.65 billion in stock to acquire YouTube.com, the popular video-sharing website. The price stunned industry experts who noted that the fixed assets of YouTube consist of a video interface and a 'cool logo.' The potential of YouTube exists in the previously futile hopes of an individual to 'be somebody' in front of the entire world. Thirty-eight percent of 1,600 survey respondents want to create or share content online, according to a study by Accenture. This puts all those personal videos uploaded to YouTube in context. Rishad Tobaccowala, chief executive officer of Denuo, a new media consultancy, says that if a person isn't posting online, that person doesn't exist. The era in which video entertainment was produced only by Hollywood and large media firms is over, and advertisers know it. Many people can now watch themselves on an approximation of TV, and the bonus is that others want to watch them as well. Uploaded television commercials are added to the video-sharing site along with professional content obtained from Hollywood, and YouTube offers a never-ending volume of short video content for others to share if they choose to. The traditional commercial broadcasting business model is disappearing, and companies need to take steps to avoid becoming irrelevant. The question of how anyone will make money through the video-sharing revolution remains open.