We live sedentary lives. Don't take my word for it. The latest comScore video-streaming stats are out, and they show that watching clips on the Web is immensely popular.
Stateside, 135 million users watched an average of 82 videos in April. Work the multiplication magic, and that comes out to nearly 11 billion views.
|
April |
Videos |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Google |
4,159,850,000 |
37.9% |
|
News Corp. |
557,663,000 |
5.1% |
|
Yahoo! |
352,359,000 |
3.2% |
|
Microsoft |
268,033,000 |
2.4% |
|
Viacom |
199,968,000 |
1.8% |
Source: comScore Video Metrix.
YouTube accounted for nearly all of Google's market dominance, as well as 37% of all of the videos watched domestically in April. MySpace's rapidly growing video channel helped keep parent News Corp. in second place -- albeit a distant second.
We're not looking at a passing fad. Consumers are more and more comfortable seeking fresh content in cyberspace, and the trend continues to intensify.
The problem for investors is the difficulty in monetizing the streams. A page with a clip on it is chunkier than a conventional Web page, and video-based advertisers aren't as plentiful as the traditional advertisers that you'll find at Google's text-based paid-search juggernaut. Even the mighty YouTube has yet to become a fiscal gold mine, despite its ubiquity.
This is the reason I always suggest alternative plays for investors looking to cash in on the clip-culture revolution. Webcam makers such as Microsoft and Logitech
More opportunities will come. Too many people are clicking on videos for the money not to follow. For now, content-delivery networks and companies such as Adobe and Logitech are the places for investors to be -- until the video-sharing sites begin showing investors the money -- and not just the clips.
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