comScore: 10 billion videos viewed in February

If there was any doubt that online video was slow to catch on, a new report from comScore should dispel those thoughts. Researchers found that in February in the United States, more than 10 billion videos were viewed.

by Kristina Knight

That is a 3% increase over January viewing numbers and a 66% increase year over year.

Nearly 135 million users watched online videos during the reporting period; they spent more than 200 minutes with online videos during that time. Google sites were the top destination, attracting 81 million viewers who spent just over 100 minutes on Google's video hubs. Fox Interactive was next with 55 million viewers, following Fox were Yahoo sites which attracted just under 40 million viewers.

What is even more impressive is that it isn't just younger viewers watching online video. As the market begins to mature, more users over the age of 18 are logging on.

"As online video becomes more mainstream with internet users, the share referred traffic from the younger audiences of social networks is declining, shifting instead toward search," said Heather Dougherty, director of research, Hitwise. "Integration into search engine result pages through universal and blended search is increasing both the exposure of online videos and the importance of search as a traffic driver in the online video category."

A related report from Hitwise shows that visits to YouTube increased more than 30% year over year. Meanwhile visits to MySpace decreased, going from a 17% market share to a 9% market share.