Traffic analysts Hitwise released new numbers today indicating that while online video sites as a category have seen a 7% drop in traffic year over year since March 2007 - YouTube has seen a remarkable 32% growth in visits during that period. YouTube's market share in the video sector is now at 73.18%, Hitwise reports.
That's significantly higher than Google's all-time market share high-point among search engines. Google saw an all-time high 67% of searches performed in March, also according to Hitwise.
MySpace TV came in second place last month, with just over 9% of visits. Google Video was 3rd at 4%, meaning that the two Google properties combine to hold a staggering 77% marketshare. Hitwise numbers are limited to US internet users and in this case to 68 selected top video websites.
Below are the Hitwise charts for the top 5 video sites and for the top 5 independent video sites. It is worth noting that ad networks report a seeing a substantial number of viewers on niche video sites - Hitwise here includes only general interest video sites. Thus these numbers cannot be used to conclude that there is no Long Tail in online video in general - that's a separate question. The point is that among general interest sites, there is effectively no Long Tail.
The numbers presumably do not include viewership of videos embedded on third party websites like blogs, a factor that would undoubtedly only make YouTube's dominance bigger if it were to be included. That advantage is likely to increase even further if the new YouTube API is a success.
The reported drop in total video viewing online seems remarkable as well. Hitwise says that this category of sites made up 1.09% of US website visits last month, down 7% from 1.16% in March of 2007. Why is video dropping? Perhaps audiences are deciding that there's nothing on anywhere but YouTube, perhaps they are excited that the TV writers' strike is over and are paying extra close attention to that medium.
The biggest takeaway really does seem, though, to be that though "Googling" is a verb for search - the company's market share dominance is substantially higher in online video.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Report: YouTube Dominates Video More than Google Dominates Search.
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Very interesting observation. YouTube is certainly the place to be now a days. Of course being on the top of page one in Google isn't a bad neighborhood to be hanging out in either.
What is really interesting is the sheer size of the lead that YouTube enjoys over everybody else. At this point it seems that it would be impossible for anyone to possibly catch up to them.
Posted by: The Masked Millionaire | April 14, 2008 3:11 PMvery intersesting - i put this post on http://www.tectrnd.com
Posted by: Vincent Nicolai | April 14, 2008 3:24 PMIsn't redtube, youporn etc. more popular than youtube? :D
Posted by: Mr. Ilarijs | April 14, 2008 5:40 PMMr. Ilarijs, those weren't on the list of 68 companies defining the category.
Posted by: Marshall KirkpatrickIt does kinda read like these guys are saying "the mobile web doesn't work, except for the situations in which it does work." unless you think about cost to users of the high end phones for which it works. that will change though, I presume.
Posted by: Marshall KirkpatrickIs it because people are busy watching youtube videos they do not search? :D
Posted by: Kishor | April 14, 2008 8:27 PMI'm surprised Google Video is kept independent of YouTube still.
Posted by: Watch Televisoin | April 15, 2008 3:32 AMNow Flickr has Video feature, which will help Yahoo! a little bit :-) They might get a small share graduatelly.
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It's intriguing to me how YouTube got to this place of dominance... they've become a household name. Yet I've been impressed by features on other sites, such as Vimeo's HD videos and Veoh's download functionality via VeohTV. (Veoh is also home to many illegally posted movies, which some may see as an advantage. :)
Of course, online video seems to partly be a chicken-egg problem - people won't use your site if you don't have good content, but to get good content you need people using your site. YouTube wins on content selection.
Then again, as with movies on Veoh, I'd venture to say that most of the content I've enjoyed on YouTube - or any online video site apart from studio sites like ABC.com and Hulu - is illegal. A few artists post their own music videos, but many of the clips on video sites are obvious copyright violations. There's certainly plenty of original content too, but I'd venture to say it's not as popular on the whole.
Posted by: Joey Tyson | April 15, 2008 2:30 PM