utube possible take over by yahoo

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Utube.com, a Web site owned by a supplier of used tubes and pipes, has been swamped with visitors confusing it with online video service YouTube Inc. and has been barely operational since Google Inc. said on Monday it would buy YouTube for $1.65 billion.

"I'm at a point now, all I want to do is to make the site work," Ralph Girkins, owner of the site belonging to Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corp., told Reuters on Thursday.

"Today, it's been up the longest it's been up for a week -- an hour and a half," said Ohio-based Girkins.

utube.com is the sixth most popular U.S. manufacturing Web site, ahead of Whirlpool Corp., according to data provided by HitWise.

On Monday, Girkins told Reuters an intermediary who said he was acting on behalf of YouTube had offered $1 million to buy the Internet address, but he turned down the offer and was holding out for $2.5 million to $3 million.

A YouTube spokesman said it had not made an offer and had no plans to do so.

On Thursday, Girkins said he had received about 20 phone calls from people who offered to sell his site for him. He has not been in contact with Google or YouTube, he said.