• Forbes.com, Thursday, November 16, 2006 12:30 PM

Online video is omnipresent in the media, but how important an activity is it for Web users? Not as big as you might think. As recently as April, Forrester Research found that just 25% of users reported online video as one of the top three activities they perform online.

InsightExpress, another research firm, found that among heavy Web users, 54% watched or streamed online video, but that still lagged far behind entering contests (84%), playing games (73%), listening to Internet radio (71%), reviewing products (68%) and sharing photos (67%).

Advertisers will be encouraged by the following numbers, released by the Online Publishers Association in March: an impressive 31% said they checked out a company's Web site after they saw an online video ad, while 14% went to a store to check out the product. Another 14% requested more information.

Nielsen//NetRatings, comScore and Quantcast say Web users ages 35 to 65 make up anywhere from 48% to 64% of YouTube's audience. BIGresearch, another traffic monitor, says the average age of U.S. online video users is 39.

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