A text message at half eleven at night to tell me that Google just acquired Youtube. Last week it was just a rumour, now its a US$1.65 billion reality.

Guess its one thing that Google, with all their millions, couldn’t make on their own. Will this mark an end to Google Video? Who knows! Techcrunch has a great report on it, including mentioning that Yahoo were involved in the bidding war right until the closing stages.

The deal itself will be closed soon enough but represents Google’s largest ever acquisition and considering the age of Youtube it is an absolute phenomenon that the company went for this much money.

The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing online video entertainment communities with Google’s expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in uploading, watching and sharing videos, and will offer new opportunities for professional content owners to distribute their work to reach a vast new audience.

“The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google. “Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers.”

No sign of a name change, Google stating that Youtube will retain “distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing video business”. Full details are available from the official Google press release.