There have been a lot of recent web startup acquisition deals over the past few years. Now, Digg.com, the San Francisco based news syndicate, may be acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in the coming weeks. The web site’s founders Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, who report that their web site gets over 20 million unique monthly visitors, are looking for at least $150 million.

$150 Million seems like a high figure for a web site that only makes around $3 Million annually, but they reportedly have “multiple groups” interested. Rose and Adelson are not desperate to sell. If Digg is not acquired in the coming days, chances are they will start another round of financing. They raised well over $2.5 million in Series A financing with investors including the Omidyar Network, founded by eBay founder Omidyar Pierre, and others.

According to TechCrunch, Google is in talks with YouTube, finalizing an acquisition deal that would put YouTube in the hands of Google for a mere $1.6 billion dollars. So why would either party be interested in such a deal?

Google has about $10 billion in cash on hand, while YouTube has significantly less, and is quickly burning through its stash with extrodinarily high bandwidth bills each month. YouTube also has a massive audience that Google’s advertisers would l-o-v-e to tap into via AdWords. Such advertising would also significantly increase profits for Google, as well as investor confidence in the company.

Other reasons for Google’s interest YouTube include wanting to keep it out the hand’s of its competitors, who have expressed interest in acquiring the company in the not-so-distant past. Viacom, News Corp., Yahoo, and Microsoft are all said to be interested in YouTube.

Google already has a video service, dubbed “Google Video,” which ranks third amongst the major online video services. It is unclear if this acquisition occurred, whether Google Video and YouTube would meld together into one, or remain seperate entities.

Neither Google or YouTube has confirmed or denied the rumors. The rumors apparently came from a reliable, undisclosed source close who contacted Michael Arrington of TechCrunch fame.