User-generated videos (UGVs) totaled 22 billion views in 2007, an increase of 70 percent over 2006, according to Accustream iMedia Research’s “UGV 2005-2008: Mania Meets Mainstream” report.
Paul A. Palumbo, research director at Accustream, told eMarketer that the 22 billion views was a global figure. User-generated videos on U.S. based Web sites attracted 22 billion views from users worldwide.
Accustream said that user-generated videos had an average of 10, 695 views in 2007. Crackle.com, which focused on category expansion and more professional content, had the highest average number of views of the sites that were measured with 216,596 per video.
Harris Interactive asked U.S. adult Internet users about the types of online video they would like to see more. UGV had the lowest response for almost all demographics. Young adults were most likely to want more user-generated video.
A more detailed picture of UGV viewer demographics came from the “Annual Gadgets survey 2007” by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which examined active adult users of video-sharing sites where many UGVs are hosted. Pew found that over half of the visitors to these sites were 18 to 29 years old.
A separate Pew study found that more than three-quarters of 18-to-29-year-old Internet users had watched some form of online video in February or March 2007, more than half of 30-to-49-year-old Internet users had viewed online video too.
Close to four out of 10 Internet users 65 and older had also watched online video, revealing that the general online video audience is not comprised of only young people.
Online video viewing is common among Internet users of all ages. Marketing that features user-generated video should still probably focus on young adults in particular.
