Tablets are growing in popularity, and with good reason. The Apple iPad is king right now, but Amazon is ready to unleash its first tablet on the world. And it could compete, partly thanks to online video.

Video On Tablets

People lucky enough to own a tablet computer are likely to enjoy a higher level of engagement with online video than their poor notebook- or desktop-owning cousins. At least according to Ooyala, which provides a range of video services to brands and businesses.

For each minute of video content watched on a desktop, 1 minute, 17 seconds will be watched on a tablet. Which represents a 28 percent advantage. Tablet owners are also more than twice as likely to watch a video to the end, and a third more likely than people watching on mobile devices.

iPad vs. Kindle Fire

The second part of the equation is which tablets are being used here. It’s wholly unsurprising to discover that the iPad is king, with the Apple device accounting for 99.4 percent of displays, 97.7 percent of total plays, and 95.7 percent of total hours streamed. Which leaves Android tablets floundering with fractions of percentage points.

However, one Android-powered tablet that could throw a sizable spanner in the works is the Amazon Kindle Fire, which releases tomorrow (Nov. 15). This is a device built for media consumption, with fantastic video playback, Amazon Prime, and Hulu Plus and Netflix apps available on it. It may not be an iPad but then it wasn’t built to be.

Conclusions

I firmly believe tablets are the future of home computing, even if it’ll take us a while to lose our need for the keyboard and mouse combo. Part of the reason for this is their flexibility as devices to deliver media to us, including video. Large enough to make viewing fun but small enough to be mobile tablets have everything going for them.

[Via TechCrunch]

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