Every month new viewing figures for online video are released and they tend to follow a similar pattern – YouTube at the top, and everyone else scrabbling for top 10 positions. However, this month saw something different, with Facebook surprising everyone by jumping to third.

Online Video Stats

Nielsen, as well as a number of other companies, measure the number of streams viewed on online video destinations every month.

October was no exception, although the figures were more interesting than usual. mainly because while the top two of YouTube and Hulu remained the same, there were some big changes after that. And it could be the start of a trend set to get stronger over the next few months/years.

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Citizen journalists have increased both in number and importance in recent years. And Google is now seeking to bring some order to the chaos of how amateur footage is delivered online with YouTube Direct matching citizen journalists with news media organizations.

Citizen Journalists

There was a time when news coverage was strictly professional, delivered by paid reporters, photographers, and cameramen. And then everything changed with digital cameras and video cameras standard on cellphones.

Now, any Tom, Dick, or Harry can be a citizen journalist, reporting the news as it happens in front of them. Twitter and social networks are an important facet of this trend, as is online video and in particular YouTube.

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The USB Webcam gives your not just the ability to share audio and video online, but a cheeky way to launch foam missles at targets and friends via webcam.

Instant Messaging and Missle Launching…

Webcams serve as an excellent tool for messaging online, but maybe chat just isn’t enough these days. Perhaps the time has come to incorporate not just audio and video messaging, but the ability to blast missiles at one another!
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If an entity is being threatened with extinction it has two options: evolve, or die. The Pirate Bay has chosen the former, shutting down its BitTorrent tracker and moving instead to a decentralized DHT system.

The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay is refusing to die. It’s been the largest and one of the most popular torrent trackers in the world for a few years now. But its notoriety and ability to taunt copyright owners meant trouble was never far away.

The Pirate Bay’s legal woes came to a head in February when a three-year investigation into the site arrived in court. By April, the four defendants had been found guilty and it looked as though this was the beginning of the end for TPB.

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KickAssTorrents.com is a new player in the torrent search space creating an easy and currently ad-free way to search for music, TV shows, movies, eBooks, and software.

The torrent portal launched publicly back in February 2009 and in under 10 months has quickly become a serious player in the torrent space.

KickAssTorrents has told WebTVwire.com that it receives over 100,000 visitors each day. A quick look at the traffic growth on Alexa confirms this:

[source]

Sweet Usability

Upon arriving on KickAssTorrents.com you’ll instantly notice the clean design, ease of use, and obvious absence of advertising.

Torrent sites have become the underground playhouse for scammy advertisers promising russian wives, instant weight loss, hot girls in your area, and seedy work from home opportunities.

It is a breath of fresh air to see a torrent site that lacks advertising, but the site is still young and KickAssTorrentz could yet be seduced by the promise of ad-revenue checks.

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Live video streaming services are rapidly growing in popularity and also rapidly growing in number. The latest to enter the fray is TinyChat.tv, which is hoping to compete against established companies such as Stickam, Ustream, Livestream, and Justin.tv.

Live Streaming Video

Live streaming video services allow anyone to stream what they want over the Internet to anyone who is interested in watching. The only real rules are regarding the content, with no copyright-infringements or criminal offenses allowed.

There are already a number of well-established companies offering ordinary people the chance to host their own online television show, with Stickam, Ustream, Livestream, and Justin.tv all popular and all user-friendly to varying degrees.

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The BBC iPlayer continues to go from strength to strength. Last week saw the service win the Judges’ Award at the 2009 Royal Television Society Innovation Awards and get its own dedicated channel on the Nintendo Wii.

BBC iPlayer

The BBC iPlayer has shone like a beacon since its full launch almost two years ago in December 2007. The catch-up TV service lead the way not only in the U.K. but around the world, with Hulu being its big-name opposite in the U.S.

Rather than rest on its laurels, the BBC carried on improving the service despite already providing millions of streams to viewers. The current iteration of the iPlayer service is more user-friendly and easy-to-use than any Web application or online video site.

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