Online Video: More Than 11 Billion Served

Blaise Zerega prefers online video. The latest numbers for online video are in. As reported by the New York Times, the number of people watching video inched up from 132 million in May 2007 to 135 million this past April. But the amount of time spent viewing video skyrocketed from 158 minutes per user in May of last year to 228 minutes per user in April. And the biggest number of all, 11 billion videos were viewed in April -- with YouTube.com delivering more than 4 billion of them. But is it true that as Mark Cuban opines, that the more videos YouTube serves, the more money it loses?

Let's face it, the Web is awash with video and it's one of the reasons that advertisers are starting to pay attention to session times. Any bored user can click quickly through multiple pages per visit, driving up a site's page views and relative ranking by web monitoring firms. But it is engaged users who let the minutes pile up when visiting sites, often by watching video -- and in April, it was 2.8 minutes per video, on average.

With statistics like this, the argument for session duration instead of page views as a basis for online ad rates becomes stronger. And it may prove a boon for the likes YouTube as it searches for a profitable business model and competes for ad dollars from the likes of Hulu. According to Silicon Alley Insider, the online video giant is experimenting with eliminating its 10 minute limit on video. The cap was meant to be a deterrent to people uploading pirated feature films, but it may also have deterred some revenues.