Microsoft and Internet Television
Online video is growing ever more popular, particularly in the United States. But it’s YouTube which continues to drive market penetration, with Hulu leading the rest of the growing pack.
Online Video Viewer Stats
Online video is showing no signs of slowing down in growth. As the latest comScore statistics for December 2009 show.
178 million Internet users in the U.S. watched online video during the last month of the decade. Which equates to almost 87 percent market penetration.
Between them they watched over 33 billion videos in December, or the equivalent of 187 videos each. The average length of video now stands at 4.1 minutes, up from 3.5 minutes around the same time last year.

There’s a definite feeling that Microsoft is bouncing back after a dismal last few years which saw Bill Gates leave the company and Windows Vista hit the shelves. Windows 7 is now with us, its Bing search engine is competing with Google, and the company is also making efforts with online video.
Ashley Highfield claims the television industry has three years to act before it faces an “iTunes moment” with Apple running the online video show.
The Xbox 360 is winning the fight for consoles to become important cogs in the online video sector. And a set of new Netflix features rolled out on the Xbox 360 have coincided with a promise that Netflix will not be coming to PS3 or Wii any time soon.
It was only announced last week but the MSN Video Player has now gone live. Is it worth watching? How does it compare to the BBC iPlayer and Hulu? Read on for a full review of Microsoft’s online video streaming service.
YouTube has seen off another contender to its throne, with Microsoft preparing to kill off Soapbox, or at least substantially shutter the user-generated portion of the site. If even Microsoft cannot hope to compete, is YouTube too dominant for the health of the online video sector?