Online Video: Who's Watching? And How Often?

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If you’re going to get your video viewed, you’ve got to know where the viewers are. A report released today by ComScore makes it clear that viewers are watching more than anyone thought, and they’re doing it largely at YouTube.

ComScore released detailed results for video viewership in July of 2007 in its Video Metrix report, and found that fully three-quarters of Internet users in the U.S. watched some online video that month. More surprising: the average amount of time people spent watching was 3 hours over the month. Since the study also found that the average video length was 2.7 minutes, that means the average viewer saw 67 videos during the month, or over two each day.

All totaled, Americans watched over 9 billion online videos in July. YouTube, not surprisingly, lead the pack. Google sites delivered 2.5 billion videos that month, representing 27 percent of all videos served, and YouTube accounted for 2.4 billion of those.

While other sites boasted sizable numbers, no other site or group of sites came close to the Google/YouTube numbers. Yahoo sites followed with 390 million videos, and then Fox Interactive Media (298 million), Viacom Digital (281 million), and Disney Online (182 million).

But how many people watched those videos? Again, Google/YouTube lead the way. ComScore found that nearly 134 Americans watched online videos in July, and that Google sites had a total of 67.8 million unique visitors. Fox Interactive Media actually came in second with 35.8 million unique visitors, and Yahoo came third, with 35.3 million. That means that Yahoo had fewer visitors than Fox, but those visitors watched more videos.

For video creators, this report shows that when it’s time to think distribution, you’d be a fool to skip YouTube. While it shouldn’t be your own distribution medium, even companies using white label distribution services should also post their work to YouTube. Its unparalleled reach can drive many more visitors to your site than you might have had otherwise.

This article was first published on WebVideoUniverse.