While YouTube has been the buzzworthiest video site in the news this year, the latest comScore report shows that while YouTube continues to grow, it has a little ways to go before it can catch up with MySpace and Yahoo in terms of number of viewers and number of videos per user.
Over 106.5 million people, or about three out of every five US users, streamed or downloaded video during the month of July for a total of 7.2 billion videos. With an average of 67 streams per viewer for that month, the typical user viewed at least two streams per day.
The metrics company found that Yahoo sites topped the list in terms of total unique US video streamers at 37.9 million. MySpace trailed close behind with 37.4 million (about a third of MySpace members), and YouTube ranked third with 30.5 million streamers.
Time Warner Network and Microsoft sites also made the list, attracting 25.7 million and 16.2 million streamers, respectively.
Faring “particularly well in US user engagement,” MySpace ranked first in terms of individual video streams initiated by US users, with nearly 1.5 billion streams, or 20 percent of all videos streamed in the country in July. The typical MySpace member initiated an average of 39 streams that month, or a little over one per day. Yahoo was second in this category, with 812 million US-initiated streams, followed YouTube with 649 million.
“The surge in Web video content enables advertisers to expand beyond banners and reach online audiences using sight, sound and motion,” said Erin Hunter, executive vice president of comScore’s Media and Entertainment Group.
YouTube has been flirting with possible acquisition suitors, setting its minimum bid at $1.5 billion, if the company decides not to go public. According to the New York Post, those suitors have included Viacom, Disney, AOL, eBay, and News Corp.
Adding YouTube to News Corp.-owned MySpace’s extensive presence would put News Corp. in control of two-thirds of the Web video traffic, according to July numbers. However, recently a News Corp. executive mentioned the possibility MySpace would add its own in-house YouTube-like service, as MySpace drives much of YouTube’s overall traffic.
Yahoo is also getting more aggressive on the video scene. The world’s busiest Web portal added video-sharing site Jumpcut to its acquisitions list.
From the Jumpcut blog:
Joining forces with Yahoo! Video will provide the resources to bring Jumpcut users and our partners more great social media experiences. As part of Yahoo! we’ll be working on bringing video editing and remixing to everyone with an Internet connection..
“Ever since Yahoo! Research Berkeley launched the International Remixer, our interest in this space has been pretty clear – we couldn’t stop talking about how cool it is to mashup multimedia of all kinds,” said Yahoo VP of Social Media Jason Zajac.
“So needless to say, we are very happy to have Jumpcut join the Social Media group here. They’ll be bunk-mates with Flickr, and just around the virtual corner from del.icio.us.”
Add to 
Bookmark Murdok: 
