Google’s YouTube leads all video sites in unique users, stickiness, and growth over the past year. Combining YouTube with Google Video, Google dominates the top video sharing sites, with over 4.4 times the users as its nearest competitor. Despite accounting for a small fraction of the files on the Internet, web videos from YouTube alone account for more than 10% of the traffic. That is why video optimization is important for web site performance and saving bandwidth. Broadband penetration among active Internet users grew to 83.23% in US homes in June, up 1.05 percentage points from 82.18% in May 2007.
Top Ten Video Sites
With its acquisition of YouTube, Google now dominates the top ten video sharing sites (see Figure 1). YouTube tops the list with 51,378,000 unique users as of June 2007, and is growing at over 270% over the past year. Google video came in second with 17,759,000 unique users. AOL Video came in third with 15,687,000 users, Yahoo Video was a close fourth at 15,473,000 users, and Myspace a close fifth at 15,281,000 users.
Figure 1: Top Ten Video Sites by Audience – June 2007
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Top Ten Video Sites by Time Spent Online
YouTube led the top ten video sites with time spent online by a wide margin. The average user of YouTube spent over 43 minutes on the site in the last month (see Figure 2). Myspace came in second at 13 minutes 46 seconds per user. AOL Video came in third in time online at 10 minutes 48 seconds. Veoh came in a close fourth at 10 minutes 31 seconds. Break.com came in fifth in time online at 8 minutes 35 seconds.
Figure 2: Top Ten Video Sites by Time Spent Online – June 2007
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Home Connectivity in the US
US broadband penetration grew to 83.23% among active Internet users in June 2007. Narrowband users connecting at 56Kbps or less now make up 16.77% of active Internet users, down 1.05 percentage points from 17.82% in May 2007 (see Figure 3).
Web Connection Speed Trends – Home Users (US)
Figure 3: Web Connection Speed Trends – Home Users (US)
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Broadband Growth Trends in the US
In June 2007, broadband penetration in US homes grew 1.05 percentage points to 83.23% up from 82.18% in May. This increase of 1.05 points is above the average increase in broadband of 0.75 points per month over the last six months (see Figure 4).
Broadband Adoption Growth Trend – Home Users (US)
Figure 4. Broadband Adoption Growth Trend – Home Users (US)
Extrapolated from Nielsen//NetRatings data
Work Connectivity
As of June 2007, 94.05% of US workers connected to the Internet with broadband, up 0.06 percentage points from the 93.99% share in May. At work 5.95% connect at 56Kbps or less (see Figure 5).
Web Connection Speed Trends – Work Users (US)
Figure 5: Web Connection Speed Trends – Work Users (US)
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Further Reading
- Google to Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion in Stock
- Google’s announcement of its acquisition of the video sharing site YouTube. Oct. 9, 2006.
- Nielsen//NetRatings
- Provided the video sharing site and US broadband penetration data for active Internet users for the Bandwidth Report.