Online Video Continues to Surge in Popularity and Use
Guest Post By Dona Collins
Online video usage continues to grow exponentially as broadband Internet access becomes more and more commonplace in U.S. households and work places. Most importantly, research shows online video usage transcends race, ethnicity, age and gender making it a crossover hit with deep cultural penetration.
Last week, Ragan Communications, Inc. reported 71 percent of Americans said they watch videos online – a figure up 38 percent from five years ago.
That finding followed research published this summer by The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that showed more than half of online adults have watched or downloaded video and 19 percent do so in the normal course of a day. In addition, 74 percent of broadband users who have high-speed connections at home and work watch or download videos online, Pew reported in its first major report on online video that was published in late July.
VIDEO TRAVEL THE WEB
That kind of popularity is pretty phenomenal – even in the age of social media saturation. The Pew research also demonstrates how videos travel. Nearly 60 percent of online video users share links with others and three out of four people say they watch videos from links sent to them by others.
YouTube remains at the top of the heap when it comes to online video providers. As of August, Nielsen data rated YouTube as the fifth most popular web brand after Internet giants Google, Facebook, Yahoo! And MSN/WindowsLive/Bing. During that month, nearly 128 million unique U.S. viewers visited YouTube and each person spent more than one hour and 41 minutes on the site in August.
Nielson data showed men consistently are the most frequent users of streaming online video. Asians lead among ethnic groups in use of online video, viewing the medium more than six hours per month more than whites and nearly four hours more per month than Hispanics. African-Americans watch the most mobile video, according to the media research company.
PARENTS WATCHING ONLINE VIDEO
The Ragan Communications research also found parents watch more online videos than non-parents and rural residents are viewing more streaming videos than they used to –a likely byproduct of the expanded availability in recent years of broadband access in remote areas.
These statistics paint a clear picture of the continued rise of the online video star. Along with this continued success comes a greatly expanded avenue for personal entertainment, fundraising, community outreach, education and any number of other worthwhile endeavors. Marketing and advertising opportunities associated with online videos should also continue to show growth in conjunction with the continued popularity of online video.
About Author:
Dona Collins has been writing for over 11 years. She is an expert in area of tablets, mobile devices, large databases, infographic design and other editing work. You can also find Dona on Facebook when she is not working.
