When news broke that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and YouTube were in acquisition talks, it didn't come from TheWall Street Journal, TheNew York Times, or any of traditional media's other stalwarts. Instead, many people -- myself included -- got the story from TechCrunch, a popular blog dedicated to reporting the latest advances from the rapidly evolving world of what has been dubbed Web 2.0.

The scoop reinforces the widely accepted notion that professional bloggers are becoming increasingly robust and capable competitors to reporters from traditional media sources like Washington Post's (NYSE:WPO) The Washington Post or Newsweek, or Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) Time magazine. Given bloggers' ability to post articles immediately, react in real time to feedback from other news sources, and link to other articles and sources for a richer reading experience, it's difficult to imagine how the best bloggers will do anything but continue to grow in influence at the expense of traditional media.

This point was brought home in a study conducted by Jupiter Research, showing that a majority of users in Europe now get more of their information from the Internet than from newspapers. The average consumer now spends four hours a week getting information from the Internet, as opposed to only three hours from newspapers and magazines. Three years ago, the average consumer was spending only two hours a week at Internet news sites. The study did note, however, that while the Internet was growing -- often at newspapers' expense -- people still received most of their information from the television.

That brings us back to Google and YouTube. As a result of their deal, I believe that the new-media darlings will change the traditional electronic media industry as drastically as blogs have shaken up its peers in print. YouTube's technology makes distributing video content as easy and ubiquitous for everyday users as blogs did for written articles.

It's hard to say where these trends will lead. At a minimum, the rise of YouTube and similar video-sharing sites suggests that News Corp. (NYSE:NWS), General Electric (NYSE:GE) division NBC Universal, Viacom (NYSE:VIA), and many others will have to adjust their strategies accordingly to keep this revolution from running off without them.

If traditional media does miss this trend, however, it can probably take solace in one thing: It will be able to read about its demise quickly on TechCrunch, or see video of its downfall endlessly replayed on YouTube.

Further Google-y Foolishness:

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Fool contributor Jack Uldrich has no incriminating footage of himself on YouTube (to his knowledge), but he does own stock in Google. Time Warner is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick. The Fool has a strict disclosure policy .