Google's YouTube buy more for research than advertising dollars

Is Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s real goal with YouTube to monetize the video-sharing web site as more and more customers view video in addition to just viewing web sites? That's been the common perception ever since YouTube was acquired by Google last fall, but one thing you can't pass Google up for is its goal of making all the world's information searchable. With that said, is YouTube simply a tool to allow Google to possess the world's largest video database so that it can create future tools to allow future customers to search through that kind of material?

That notion would make the YouTube purchase quite an expensive tool in Google's toolbox. All things considered, the world's largest internet search engine didn't pay all that much for YouTube ($1.65 billion in stock) if it can leverage the extensive (and growing daily) database of video footage so that it can figure out how to make video content as searchable and relevant as simple web site links and relevant information are today for customers who perform Google searches at www.google.com.

Google is a master at trying to direct attention away from its true intentions, and in many cases, the market does not know what is going on even as the search king turns out this product and unveils that product. Its true intentions may not yet be known outside of the offices of Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt, but I do stand by my assertion that the be-all-end-all game of Google's strategy is to become the world's largest advertiser by way of connecting the most relevant buyer with the most relevant seller -- for any product or service in any country at any price. Oh, and Google will take a small cut of each transaction, of course.