US users consumed 3 hours of online video in July

The timing has never been better for online video advertising. That is because, according to a new report from comScore, US viewers watched about 3 hours of online video in July.

by Kristina Knight

Considering most video clips are less than three minutes, that is a huge assortment of viewing possibilities - and a lot of advertising opportunities as three in every four online adults watched a video clip.

Americans downloaded more than 9 billion videos during the month of July, primarily from Google sites. Google video platforms accounted for more than 2.5 billion (27%) streams during the counting period, most of those clips were watched via YouTube. The closest competitors were Yahoo which accounted for 390 million streams (4%) and Fox, accounting for 298 million streams (3%). Viacom ranked fourth with 280 million streams.

Here are a few other notes of interest to marketers. One in every three viewers watched a video via Google's YouTube platform, with most streams lasting about two minutes. comScore researchers estimate that each viewer watched 68 individual videos during the counting period, an average of two streams each day.

What are users viewing online? Primarily news clips, according to research, but UGC videos are quickly gaining in popularity. These viral clips are growing in scope as users continue to share their favorite clips with friends through social networking platforms.