Groonk's Newsmine 2.0

Others have faith in Google, which is generally known for innovation and internet savvy. A prominent figure of the YouTube community, boh3m3 said, "Come on, man. Google is good. If it had to be bought by any company, I have to say Google is a ... great choice."

"The community is very honest," says Supan, laughing at her understatement. "That's the beauty of the community -- everyone has a voice."

As part of the deal, Hurley, Chen and the other 65 YouTube employees will continue to work independently at their new offices in San Bruno, Calif. Google is expected to give YouTube a considerable marketing boost, increasing the number of ads on the site.

Luke Barats, who with his comedy partner Joe Bereta has parlayed their popular YouTube sketch videos into a pilot deal with NBC, is happy for YouTube's creators. His concern, though, lies with increased advertising.

"If the advertising is kept as unobtrusive as possible, I doubt there will be much backlash from the YouTube community," says Barats. "The fact of the matter is that YouTube still offers a great product -- a widely used embeddable player that works on both PC and Mac."

Stern fears an increase in advertising will take up precious space on YouTube's home page, which lists featured videos.

"In order to become widely popular on YouTube, it's almost imperative that you get featured on the front page," says Stern, 28. "YouTube has already begun selling off its top front page real estate to advertisers and Google, one of the top internet advertising brokers, is not going to make matters any better."