Online Videos Booming In Popularity

One would be hard pressed to find anyone under the age of 40 who hasn't watched a YouTube video or caught a video clip online of a major news event.

So it's hardly a surprise that online video viewing is skyrocketing these days as the medium is being used for everything from participating in online contests, to marketing programs and educational efforts.

A new study released by research firm comScore reports that the average video watcher watched nearly 10 hours of online video this past August, and that 161 million people watched some form of online video during the month -- the largest audience ever recorded. More than 25 billion (yes, billion) videos were viewed during the month and Google Sites accounted for more than 10 billion of the total.

Of course, YouTube.com accounted for 99 percent of all videos viewed at the Google Sites property.

Microsoft Sites followed Google with 547 million videos watched, about 2.2 percent, with Viacom Digital next with 539 million videos viewed (2.1 percent) and Hulu with 488 million (1.9 percent).

Here are a few other interesting online video activity statistics:

• 81.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• 120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube.com (82.6 videos per viewer).
• 44.9 million viewers watched 340 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
• The average Hulu viewer watched 12.7 videos, totaling 1 hour and 17 minutes of videos per viewer.
• The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.

Photo courtesy of YouTube