There’s no question that Internet video is popular. And it’s great to see some research numbers behind it. Measurement company Comsore released data on the U.S. streaming video market and found that almost 123 million people (or 70% of the total U.S. Internet audience) viewed 7.2 billion videos online in January 2007.
That’s a lot of bandwidth.
In fact, Comscore found that the average video streamer viewed 59 streams in one month, which is almost two videos per day. I’d say that I watch at least a hundred videos per month, but then again, I do write and blog about Internet video. I regularly surf YouTube, Revver and Stumble Upon Video just to pass the time and to look for interesting things to write about. It’s kind of cool to watch Internet video for your job, isn’t it?
Comscore also found that viewers watched an average of 151 minutes of video online during the month, with the average viewing time per video at 2.6 minutes. This is somewhat surprising since I don’t like to watch videos longer than 45 seconds generally. Anything longer than that and I feel like I’ve been watching an eternity. I want to see the action and move on to the next one. I have watched a few long-form videos, most notably the 9/11 documentary Loose Change on Google Video. But mostly, I’d rather get comfy and watch longer videos on my TV screen.
(My favorite video is something called “Charlie the Unicorn†a hilariously weird animated 4-minute clip which features Charlie the Unicorn going to Candy Mountain, but I digress.)
Here are some other interesting items:
Google Was Top Streaming Video Property. Not surprisingly, Google/YouTube was the top streaming video property in January, with 54.7 million total unique streamers and 1.167 billion total video streams. Most of that is coming from YouTube.com, which accounted for 992 million video streams, leaving Google Video at just 175 billion streams. Seems kind of puny compared to YouTube. I still wonder when Google will integrate its Google Video and YouTube properties—will that ever happen?
Highest Video Consumption Time: Weekdays from 5-8 P.M. That’s also not too surprisingly. It suggests that viewers are watching video after work, which means that most videos are not work related. I’m glad to see that people are watching video for pleasure rather than work. In fact, Comscore found that video consumption was 60 percent higher than average during 5 to 8pm. After 8pm, I’d guess that people move on to their TV screens. On the weekend, the highest relative video consumption occurred between 7:00-11:00 P.M. This is TV prime-time, but Saturday nights are always a slow day for TV networks.
Advertisers Take Note. According to Erin Hunter, executive vice president of comScore, advertisers can use this information to target ads. “Shrewd marketers will utilize a multi-channel strategy to capitalize on these adjacent ‘primetime’ blocks in order to maximize their marketing impact,” said Hunter.
Popularity: 18% [?]
