• March 15, 2006

Broadband's rapid proliferation is fueling the popularity of video sharing sites. Nearly 96 million U.S. Web users -- or about 68 percent of the U.S. online population now access the Internet on high-speed lines, up from 74 million one year ago, Nielsen//NetRatings reported Tuesday. MSN Video, in particular, garnered 9.3 million unique visitors in Feb. 2006, growing 44 percent over the previous year. YouTube, the hugely popular video sharing upstart, trailed MSN just slightly in Feb. with a unique audience of 9 million. Google Video, which launched last year, drew 6.2 million unique visitors. While both Yahoo's video search site and Viacom's IFilm saw triple-digit yearly growth--148 percent and 102 percent, respectively--each drew about half of MSN's audience last month. Specifically, iFilm saw 4.3 million uniques in February, and Yahoo saw 3.8 million. -- Gavin O'Malley