GeorgeHopkin.com

Via Robin Goad at Hitwise, UK web users sure love their online video; YouTube occupies the top two spots with its US and UK offerings, but the Beeb’s iPlayer is coming up fast:

UK Internet traffic to online video websites increased by 178% between February 2007 and 2008. A Hitwise custom category of the top 25 video websites in the UK accounted for 2.22% of all UK Internet visits in February 2008, equivalent for one in every 45 Internet visits last month.

YouTube is the most popular video site in the UK and the eighth most visited website overall. The combined market share of its US and UK properties in February was 69.31% of all UK Internet visits to the custom category.

The third most visited video website in the UK during February was BBC iPlayer. The Beeb’s catch-up TV streaming service has increased its market share of UK Internet visits by 423% since December 2007, and is now the 50th most visited website in the UK overall.

More: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/03/online_video_traffic_up_178_in_a_year.html

comScore has released several key findings from its Digital World: State of the Internet report, which highlights the changing dynamics of worldwide Internet usage.

Key findings include (taken from comScore’s summary):

·          The U.S. now accounts for 21 percent of Internet users worldwide.  While growth in the number of Internet users in the U.S. has slowed, several Asian and Eastern European countries continue to add new users at a rapid rate.

·          Google is the dominant search brand in most countries, including most of Europe and Latin America, with a few significant exceptions — countries where Chinese, Korean, and Russian languages dominate.

·          Chinese language search engine Baidu currently ranks #3 in worldwide search market share, behind Google and Yahoo!

·          The number of worldwide visitors to social networking sites has grown 34 percent in the past year to 530 million, representing approximately 2 out of every 3 Internet users. MySpace and Facebook are in a tight battle for the global leadership position, each attracting more than 100 million visitors per month.

·          Online video has become the dominant online entertainment format, led by the global popularity of YouTube with more than 250 million visitors in January.

·          The Internet has become an important source of news for most Web users.  The top 10 global news brands show great diversity between country of origin, including the U.S., U.K., China and South Korea.

More: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2115

Via comScore comes news that YouTube (owned by Google, of course) served one in every three online videos watched in the US in January:

comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released January 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, revealing that YouTube.com accounted for one-third of the 9.8 billion videos viewed online in the U.S. during the month. The total number of videos viewed in January was down slightly from the more than 10.1 billion viewed during a record-breaking December 2007.

Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property in January with nearly 3.4 billion videos viewed (34.3 percent share of videos), gaining 1.7 share points versus the previous month. YouTube.com accounted for more than 96 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 584 million (6 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 315 million (3.2 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 199 million (2 percent).

More: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2110

Among comScore’s findings: Yahoo! sites ranks as the top US ad publisher with a 19 per cent share of online display ads.

Publisher: share of display ads, display ads per visit
 
Yahoo! Sites: 18.8%, 20.5
Fox Interactive Media: 16.3%, 47.5
Microsoft Sites: 6.7%, 9.8
Time Warner Network: 5.8%, 10.1
FACEBOOK.COM: 1.5%, 8.4
eBay: 1.2%, 8.4
Google Sites: 1.0%, 1.3
Viacom Digital: 1.0%, 20.6
United Online, Inc: 0.5%, 18.3
Amazon Sites: 0.4%, 8.2
New York Times Digital: 0.4%, 11.5
CBS Sports: 0.3%, 22.4
COMCAST.NET: 0.3%, 4.0
PHOTOBUCKET.COM: 0.3%, 16.8
BEBO.COM: 0.3%, 27.2
ESPN: 0.3%, 6.2
Weather Channel, The: 0.3%, 8.8
NFL Internet Group: 0.3%, 12.9
Ask Network: 0.2%, 3.4
Glam Media: 0.2%, 11.9

comScore reports: “One dimension to understanding a site’s ability to monetize its content is the number of display ads it serves. Of the top 20 ad publishers, Fox Interactive served the most display ads per user visit to its sites (47.5), a particularly high number that is a function of both site engagement and how many ads are displayed per page.  Bebo (27.2), CBS Sports (22.6), Viacom Digital (20.6) and Yahoo! Sites (20.5) each served an average of more than 20 display ads per user visit.”

More: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2045

comScore reports that Facebook has made it into the UK’s top 10 web properties ranking for the first time:

“The Christmas season had a significant impact on the prevailing traffic trends in December,” said Bob Ivins, EVP of European Markets for comScore. “Eight of the top ten gaining properties were retail-related as consumers shopped for holiday gifts online, and online greetings also proved popular. That online coupon sites also grew so strongly suggests consumers may have been a bit tighter with their wallets this Christmas season.”

December’s Top 25 (rank in December, name of web property, total unique visitors that month): 

1: Google Sites, 29,292,000
2: Microsoft Sites, 27,760,000
3: eBay, 21,683,000
4: Yahoo! Sites, 21,070,000
5: BBC Sites, 18,016,000
6: Amazon Sites, 16,309,000
7: Time Warner Network, 14,387,000
8: Ask Network, 13,937,000
9: Wikipedia Sites, 12,567,000
10: Facebook.com, 12,438,000
11: Fox Interactive Media, 12,224,000
12: Home Retail Group, 12,211,000
13: Apple Inc., 11,690,000
14: Bebo.com, 11,212,000
15: Lycos Europe Sites, 10,937,000
16: CNET Networks, 9,626,000
17: Tesco Stores, 9,587,000
18: DMGT, 8,238,000
19: Dixons Stores Group, 8,078,000
20: British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), 7,792,000
21: Play.com Sites, 7,666,000
22: Viacom Digital, 6,647,000
23: Adobe Sites, 6,280,000
24: Kingfisher, 6,109,000
25: Orange Sites, 5,864,000

More: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2029

Via the Beeb, Americans have turned to online video during the writers’ strike:

Online video sharing sites are reaping the benefits of the ongoing writers’ strike in the US. According to net measurement firm Nielsen Online, some online video sites have doubled their audience since the strike began at the end of October.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7180889.stm

Convergence, that is. The word’s been around so long it must have been in and out of fashion a good half dozen times.

But it’s still appropriate - audio, video and data coming together and the (in my opinion) commoditisation of delivery, which places more and more value on content.

Digital delivery of TV takes another step forward:

Digital television is now installed in 84% of UK homes, according to the latest research.

It marks a 13% increase since 2006 - the biggest year-on-year increase yet.

The figures were released by media watchdog Ofcom in the run-up to digital switchover, which begins in Whitehaven, Cumbria, in October.

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7005269.stm

Meanwhile, ITN blazes a trail on YouTube:

ITN is to launch a channel on YouTube to deliver a range of entertainment, sport and film programmes.

The deal will also see ITN become one of the first UK media companies to exploit YouTube’s new in-video ad format that runs “transparent” overlays on top of a portion of the videos used by users.

ITN’s multimedia division, ITN On, will put entertainment programming “at the heart” of the online channel, but will also offer sport, film and Bollywood programmes.

From: http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2190083,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=4

And the BBC’s iPlayer is coming to a Mac (oh, and Linux as well) near you soon:

Adobe has promised to work with the BBC to offer the broadcaster’s iPlayer service to Macintosh and Linux users by the end of the year.

The two companies announced a partnership in which Adobe will take over the development of a free streaming version of the player for OS X, Linux and Windows.

The iPlayer had been available only to Windows XP users as a video download service. The paid download service will remain, while Adobe will oversee development of the streaming service. 

From: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2201245/free-cross-platform-iplayer