Survey: YouTube Traffic Bigger Than Rivals Combined

[engine]

YouTube, which has had to pull copyrighted videos off its site after legal attacks by some big media franchises, has enjoyed a surge in U.S. audience share that leaves it far larger than the next 64 video-sharing sites combined, a survey found.

The U.S. market share of visits to YouTube, which Google Inc. bought for $1.65 billion last November, rose 70 percent from January through May, online audience measurement firm Hitwise Inc. said in the survey published on Wednesday.

"As of May 2007, YouTube's market share was 50 percent greater than those 64 sites combined," Hitwise research director LeeAnn Prescott said in a summary of her firm's data.

Survey: YouTube Traffic Bigger Than Rivals Combined [uk.reuters.com]

[gibbergibber]

Congratulations to Youtube, but it's still very early days though. Video sharing has only really entered the public consciousness over the past year, and there's still copyright and compensation issues to be worked through.

[rogerd]

I agree, things could change when big entertainment providers get fully into the web video biz.

[Grandmas Cookies]

Don't forget that Sky TV and Mtv have already notified their interest in this sphere and it is really normal for them to want a piece of the action. I think that the years to come will be really intriguing when it comes to video sharing and web interaction.

[edited by: Grandmas_Cookies at 12:54 pm (utc) on July 3, 2007]