Google executives Eric Schmidt and Tim Armstrong are set to meet this week with News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch on the heels of the $1.65 billion sale of YouTube to the search engine giant.

Google made a huge splash on Monday when it announced the purchase of the online video hub, YouTube. By Wednesday morning, the ripple effects have already become apparent.

The term backlash would be more appropriate, as News Corp's threat first reported in the Wall Street Journal to "remove any links to YouTube videos placed by users on their MySpace blog pages" over the weekend is seemingly a knee-jerk reaction to the GooTube talks.

Or perhaps it's more like the spite of a scornful woman who just found out the man of her dreams is tying the knot with a younger, more attractive bride.

Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether or not News Corp is just blowing hot air or if they have serious intentions on backing up their threats. Either way, one can be sure the MySpace community will be anything but silent on this issue.

The Wall Street Journal also reports that News Corp had been in discussions earlier this year with Viacom and NBC Universal to give birth to their own YouTube competitor, but negotiations between the three companies eventually sputtered out.

With the ink barely dry on the $900 million deal the two companies signed in August, it appears that News Corp is looking to expand the Google advertising package to include MySpace Video.

If the two parties can come to some sort of agreement, it would give Google a veritable stranglehold on the online video distribution market.

Meanwhile, Yahoo! and Microsoft are playing the part of bride's maids to perfection.

Don't worry ladies; maybe one of you will catch the bouquet.

View All Articles by Joe Lewis