• April 23, 2008

If the Democratic presidential nomination were decided by online video viewers, Barack Obama would have it wrapped up already. More than half a million people (518,000) viewed video content on the Democratic contender's Web site in March compared to 351,000 for Hillary Clinton, according to Nielsen Online.

But both candidates blew away presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, whose videos drew only 38,000 viewers. Obama also ran away with the video vote in terms of streams (828,000) and time spent per viewer (16 minutes). That's near movie-length compared to the 4.8 minutes spent watching Clinton clips, and the 1.5 minutes for McCain videos.

Nielsen also found there was little overlap among the three candidates, suggesting their videos are playing to loyal audiences rather than comparison shoppers. Undecided voters are heading to third-party sites such as CNN.com, MSNBC.com, NYTimes.com and YouTube to get broader candidate information and video content.

--Mark Walsh