News just gets better and better for Google in terms of audience reach. While a search ad deal with Yahoo gives the company potentially 90 percent of the search market (and probably some antitrust headaches), YouTube and Google Video combined attracted 79.16 percent of US online video traffic in May, according to Hitwise.
Don’t give Google Video too much credit; YouTube raked in 75.43 percent of that, leaving just shy of four percent for Google Video. Since May of last year, when YouTube commanded about 60 percent of online video traffic, visits to the site increased by 26 percent.
YouTube snatched most of that market share from other video properties, including Google. MySpaceTV lost 44 percent for the year, falling from 16 percent to nine percent; traffic to Google Video fell a whopping 52 percent, from 7.8 to 3.73 percent; Yahoo Video’s already weak draw declined by 31 percent last year, from 2.77 to 1.92 percent.
Of others in the top five, only Veoh saw positive growth from May 2007 to May 2008, increasing its market share by 32 percent, from 0.86 percent to the very important online video threshold of 1.13 percent. Veoh’s relative success among giants could be what interested Disney’s national television network ABC, who announced a distribution deal with Veoh earlier this week.
Hitwise says visits overall to online video sites were down last year, though, declining by nine percent. Online video accounts for just 1.14 percent of all Internet visits.
Though fewer people are streaming videos these days, they are spending more time watching. Video sites enjoyed a six percent jump in the that respect. While Veoh recorded the highest number of new users at 52 percent (thus likely accounting for their nice jump), YouTube and MySpace rule the roost in terms of returning users, with 82 percent and 64 percent respectively.
