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Rumor: Yahoo interested in acquiring Metacafe

Greg Sandoval Former Staff writer
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. Based in New York, Sandoval is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at @sandoCNET.
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Greg Sandoval

Metacafe, one of the scores of video-sharing sites chasing YouTube, could be acquired soon by a big-time Silicon Valley company, according to media reports.

The Israel-based company, which is among the top 10 video-sharing sites, could fetch $200 million, according to a report in Israel Venture Capital, a technology-focused newsletter.

Yahoo is one of the companies rumored to be vying for Metacafe other publications reported. Representatives from Yahoo and Metacafe said that neither company comments on "rumor or speculation."

A growing list of companies, such as Sony and Google, are betting big on sites that allow users to post video to the Internet. Earlier this year, Sony paid $65 million for Grouper and Google paid a staggering $1.65 billion for video-sharing leader, YouTube.

If Yahoo acquires Metacafe, the portal could start trying to build a challenger to YouTube, which hosts more than 40 percent of the user-submitted video watched online. The next largest competitor is Google Video.

Some of YouTube's other competitors are Guba, Revver and Break.com.