Americans watched 14.3 billion online videos during the month of December, a record and a 13 percent rise from November, comScore says.
Google, with its You Tube video site, drew two out of three of the 150 Americans who went online to view a video – or more than 100 million people.
The average viewer saw 98 videos.
According to comScore, more than three-quarters of Internet users saw at least one video and the average viewer watched 309 minutes. The duration of the average video was 3.2 minutes, but television-viewing site Hulu kept the average user 10 minutes, more than any other top site.
Americans watched 34 percent more videos in November than a year ago, comScore said Monday.
Top video sites
But that is down from 45 percent growth in October.
Internet users in the U.S. viewed 12.7 billion videos online during the month, with Google – the owner of You Tube – capturing 40 percent of total. You Tube is responsible for more than 98 percent of videos viewed on Google sites.
According to comScore, 146 million Americans – or 77 percent of the entire U.S. Internet audience – watched an average of 87 videos per person in the month. The average person looked at 273 minutes of content.
The top sites following Google were Fox Interactive Media, owners of MySpace, Viacom Digital, Yahoo, Microsoft and Hulu.
Video on the Web is taking off with U.S. Internet users viewing 13.5 billion clips in October, 45 percent growth from last year.
The top destination for videos is Google’s YouTube, which commanded nearly 40 percent market share in the month, said comScore. Visitors watched nearly 5.4 billion videos on post-your-own-content site.
YouTube accounts for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed on Google’s sprawling list of online sites.
The second most popular destination is Fox Interactive Media, owner of MySpace, followed by Yahoo! and Viacom Digital. Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and Fox featuring television programming, was sixth.
Fox Interactive Media had 3.8 percent market share, said market monitor comScore.
During the month, more than 147 million Internet users watched an average of 92 videos, or an average of 274 minutes. Google’s sites attracted 100 million of them. Fox had 61 million viewers.
More than 80 percent of 18 to 34 years old watched video online – the top age segment.
The Roku Netflix player will soon access online video content other than Netflix
Blockbuster is not the only one firing all cylinders in an attempt to bring movies to your living room.
In response today of Blockbuster’s new OnDemand service, Saratoga, Calif., startup Roku said it is getting closer to opening its set-top-box to many “top-name content providers”.
Just like the Blockbuster service, the next generation of Roku’s media player will let users select their videos right from the box. Currently, Roku users need to make their selection from a PC.
“Soon you’ll be able to choose from 40,000 titles right on your TV,” confirms Tim Twerdahl, Roku’s Vice President of Consumer Products.
The Netflix Player is also capable to support pay-per-view (PPV) as well as ad-supported business models. Leaving the door open for possible partnerships with online video sites Hulu (ad-supported) and Amazon Video On Demand service (PPV).
Blockbuster gives away a free set-top-box when you sign up for its Internet video on-demand service
7 months. That’s what it took Blockbuster to come out with its Internet on-demand video strategy after it unveiled its online plans. Finally, this morning the video rental company announced it is giving away a set-top-box that downloads and stores videos over the Internet and plays them on your television.
Apple already does this with the AppleTV set-top-box and iTunes store offering, and Netflix also does that (streams but not stores) with Roku’s Netflix Player, TiVo, LG’s Blu-ray player and any Windows or Mac PCs.
Blockbuster’s digital media player is built by San Jose, Calif., company 2Wire and each online video rents from $1.99 versus $2.99 on iTunes and $3.99 on Amazon.
However, Blockbuster gives away the box – it’s actually $99 but you get $99 credit of free movies when you sign in – while the AppleTV costs $229.
Too little too late, again
From mail rentals to online rentals, and now with this set-top-box offering, Blockbuster is consistently behind the competition. Will it fare better this time?
I doubt because the competition online is even fiercer with Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu… all of them heading to the same place… i.e. your living room!
So what would be the best over all Internet video solution for the living room? I believe it’s here already, as a combination of all the solutions out there:
A $99 set-top-box with a $99 credit for free videos (Blockbuster);
A low subscription cost for older titles (Netflix/Roku);
Ad-supported free titles (Hulu if you could watch it on TV);
$1.99 for new titles (Blockbuster). Apple charges a minimum of $2.99 and $3.99 at Amazon.
What’s your Internet video solution of your dreams?
Supercast site shows games and on-demand highlights
DirecTV’s new Supercast online video site for professional football games already has tens of thousands of viewers, said one of the marketing executives responsible for creating it.
The Supercast site, which streams live video of football games to personal computers, was launched in September to coincide with the start of the fall sports season.
It lets subscribers flip among games and offers statistics and other information about the players and contests.
The site is one of a number experimenting with new business models involving video streaming over the Internet. Hulu, another, offers an on-demand archive of television shows with commercials.
Ivan Todorov, CEO of the Los Angeles marketing agency Blitz, said Supercast appears to build consumer loyalty to the satellite broadcaster. DirecTV subscribers with access to the service are found to frequently switch among games and to view highlights from the contests that are available on-demand.
The site has attracted an audience in the “high tens of thousands,” he said. “The object was to bring DirecTV to the desktop.”
Supercast uses Adobe Systems’ Flash and Adobe Air technologies.
On Monday, Todorov and Flash developer Grant Skinner, who worked together to build Supercast, will announce a tighter partnership.
Speaking at the Web Video Marketing Summit in San Francisco, Calif., Revision3 CEO, Jim Louderback, noted that Hulu will earn more money than YouTube this year.
And this inspite of having launched only last March and with well under 10% of YouTube’s “streams”. Both the NBC Universal and News Corp joint venture and YouTube are ad-supported.
“Advertisers are just more comfortable with professional produced content than user generated content. There’s still the fear of having there brand associated with the wrong content or porn!”, said Louderback.
Can anyone @IBM fix the WiFi network at #IOD11 ? It's been terrible for the past 2 days and everybody I talked just can't stand it anymore 6 months ago
Posted by Mark Boslet 
