• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, October 25, 2006

comScore Media Metrix, announced the results of an analysis of worldwide video streaming activity from YouTube.com, confirming that an average of 100 million video streams were served per day in July 2006. More than 63 million people (Age 15+) worldwide visited YouTube.com, 16 million of whom came from the U.S. On a daily basis, the site attracted an average of 6.2 million visitors worldwide, with 1.6 million residing in the U.S. The site also ranked as the 17th most visited property worldwide during the month.

Andrew Lipsman, Senior Analyst (comScore Networks, in a separate report, highlights a significant problem in some of the market research data provided by some research companies to the press in support of the Google/YouTube story, by providing a new way to look at this transaction.

"While one research company has touted market share of visits to a few online video sites as a key metric with which to evaluate the transaction,... comScore considers this to be misleading, especially when evaluating the impact of Google's acquisition," opines Lipsman.

"One visit," he says, "might result in only one video stream being viewed, while another visit can result in 20 video streams being viewed. With the potential to insert an ad in every stream, clearly all visits are not of equal value ... The problem is compounded if market share is measured only within a few select sites, and not across the entire Web."

Lipsman continues, "These data show that YouTube accounts for 9 percent of all streams (far below the 40 percent market share that has been reported using share of visits to only a few video sites) while Google accounts for about 1 percent of all streams served. As a result, through its acquisition of YouTube, Google has increased its number of streams by a factor of 10."

Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman, said "In acquiring YouTube, Google has, in one fell swoop, increased their number of video streams - and potential ad revenue from streaming - tenfold," said.

For more information, please go to this comScore release