Internet video viewing shows no sign of reaching a plateau. Time spent viewing video on social networking sites increased 98 percent year-over-year, from 503.8 million minutes in October 2008 to 999.4 million minutes in October 2009, according to the latest study by Nielsen.
In conjunction, the number of online video streams viewed on social networking and blog sites increased 45 percent year-over-year, from 240.8 million streams in October 2008 to 349.5 million in October 2009.
"During the past year, online video viewing has become central to the Web experience. In conjunction with this increase, we are seeing remarkable growth in video viewing on social networking sites and it is only natural that these two trends would converge in consumer's minds, making sites like Facebook and Myspace.com, increasingly important distribution points for both consumer and professionally generated video," said Jon Gibs, vice president, media analytics at Nielsen.
Facebook was the top online social networking and blog destination in October 2009, with 217.8 million total video streams viewed during the month. Myspace.com and Stickam were #2 and #3, with 85.2 million and 26.3 million video streams, respectively.
During the last year, Facebook's online video viewing audience has experienced tremendous growth. Year-over-year, total time spent viewing video on Facebook increased 1,840 percent, from 34.9 million minutes in October 2008 to 677.0 million in October 2009.
The number of unique viewers of video increased 548 percent and total streams grew 987 percent during the same time period.
"Facebook's rapid growth in online video during the last year illustrates the site's evolution from simply a communications focused tool to a media portal," remarked Gibs. "Social networking sites are evolving from a venue for catching up with friends to a platform for personal expression, allowing consumers to share their experiences in the full variety of content formats available online."
