Video ads reached 47% of the total U.S. population in January, and an average of 38 times, reports digital think-tank comScore, Inc. The company has released data from its comScore Video Metrix service, revealing that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 40 billion online videos (both ads and content) in January.
comScore defines a video as any streamed segment of audiovisual content, be it an ad or content; and including both progressive downloads and live streams. For long-form, segmented content like television episodes with ads, the content and ads were counted as a distinct video stream.
All told, Americans viewed 5.6 billion video ads in January, with Hulu delivering the highest number of video ad impressions at 1.4 billion. Adap.tv ranked second overall (and highest among video ad exchanges/networks) with 652 million ad views, followed by BrightRoll Video Network with 598 million, Tremor Video with 580 million and Specific Media with 398 million.
Time spent watching video ads totaled more than 2.3 billion minutes during the month, with Hulu delivering the highest duration of video ads at 540 million minutes. Hulu also delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 43, while ESPN delivered an average of 20 ads per viewer.
Other notable findings from January 2012 include:
- The duration of the average online content video was 6.1 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.
- Video ads accounted for 12.2% of all videos viewed and 0.9% of all minutes spent viewing video online.
Top 10 Video Content Properties by Unique Viewers
Interestingly, Hulu is only eighth in the number of total unique visitors. Hulu delivers full-length television episodes and movies, Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in January with 152 million unique viewers, followed by VEVO with 51.5 million, Yahoo! Sites with 49.2 million, Viacom Digital with 48.1 million and Facebook.com with 45.1 million. Nearly 40 billion videos views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 18.6 billion, followed by Hulu with 877 million and VEVO with 717 million.
The average viewer watched 22.6 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.5 hours) and Hulu (3.2 hours) demonstrating the highest average engagement among the top ten properties.Interestingly, Hulu is only eighths in the number of total unique visitors. Hulu delivers full-length television episodes and movies, Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in January with 152 million unique viewers, followed by VEVO with 51.5 million, Yahoo! Sites with 49.2 million, Viacom Digital with 48.1 million and Facebook.com with 45.1 million. Nearly 40 billion videos views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 18.6 billion, followed by Hulu with 877 million and VEVO with 717 million. The average viewer watched 22.6 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.5 hours) and Hulu (3.2 hours) demonstrating the highest average engagement among the top ten properties.
Data Privacy at Home: One-Third Snoop on Partners
Personal data is not just the concern of large internet companies and government regulators. A recent Retrevo Gadgetology study found that there’s a lot of snooping and tracking going on among people who know each other. More than a third of respondents, -- 33% -- admitted to checking a boyfriend’s or girlfriends email or call history without their knowledge. Slightly more married couples snoop on their spouses (37%) and an even larger number of parents spy on their kids (39%). The number of parents snooping is highest among parents of teenagers with 60% snooping on their kids and possibly for good reason as 14% of those parents reported finding something they were concerned about.
PayPal Sues over Google Wallet | FTC Opens Comments about Online Ad Rules
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PayPal sued Google and two Google executives on May 26 over the company's freshly released mobile payment product, Google Wallet, reports Direct Marketing News. According to the filing, Google, and two former PayPal executives now working at Google, misappropriated trade secrets and breached their contracts to develop the Google Wallet mobile application, unveiled the same day as the filing. PayPal currently is also testing its own mobile payment service in a trail initiative with retailers.
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The Federal Trade Commission announced its plans to conduct an overhaul of its May 2000 online advertising rules, known as the "Dot Com Disclosures." The FTC is requesting public comments on how to adapt its online advertising rules to the technological and legal advances of the past decade, Reuters reports.
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Multiple applications available in the official Android Market were found to contain malware that can compromise a significant amount of personal data, reports mobile security providers, Lookout. Twenty-six applications were found to be infected with malware that Lookout is calling “Droid Dream Light” (DDLight), and they estimate that between 30,000 and 120,000 users have been affected.
Experian Hitwise Releases bin Laden-related Traffic Stats | SocialVibe “Live” Engagement on FB
- The daily visits to News & Media websites reached a three-year high for the second time this year on Monday, May 2, 2011 following the announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden. The previous peak was on March 11, 2011 from the news of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
- Yahoo! News ranked first among the News & Media websites on Monday, May 2, 2011 and experienced an increase of 200% in total overall visits when compared to the previous Monday. MSNBC and The Huffington Post followed, with an increase of 257% and 245%, respectively, during the same time frame. Visits to the websites of other Broadcast Media such as CNN and ABC News also experienced triple-digit growth.
- The search terms driving traffic to the News & Media category on Monday were dominated by content surrounding the Bin Laden death, with ‘bin laden wives’ ranked first followed by ‘osama bin laden dead’. Out of the top 100 search terms, 30 were Bin Laden related, with 6 of those search queries including the term ‘photo’ or video’ as some called for additional evidence. Interest also grew for news around the Navy Seal Team 6, the secret unit involved in the operation and the mansion where it took place.
Sony: 24.6 Million More Users Affected | BrightRoll: Online Video Ads to be Bright Spot
- The news doesn’t get better for Sony. On the heels of their apology, announcement of resuming services, and their “Welcome Back” promotion, the company said that another 24.6 million users have had their personal data compromised – including 10,700 users in Austria, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain whose bank account number, customer name, account name and customer address in the hands on hackers since about April 16 or 17. An additional 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (sans security code) were confirmed breached as well. With the discovery of this additional information, the company shut down all servers related to SOE services while continuing to review and upgrade all of its online security systems. The additional millions of users affected was discovered was discovered by engineers and security consultants reviewing Sony Online Entertainment systems.
Twitter Steals Obama’s Thunder | Sony to Restart PlayStation, Qriocity
- Twitter helped stir the rumor soup prior to President Obama’s announcement that special forces had targeted and killed Osama bin Laden, writes lostremote.com, with a former aide to Donald Rumsfeld, given credit for the breaking news. Keith Urbahn tweeted, “So I'm told by a reputable person that they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn." Within ten minutes, Fox and the New York Times tweeted confirmations of the news. As well, the Wall Street Journal has located a tweeter from inside Pakistan -- Sohaib Athar, who uses the Twitter handle “ReallyVirtual,” tweeting repeatedly throughout the night, including, “Since taliban (probably) don’t have helicopters, and since they’re saying it was not ‘ours’, so must be a complicated situation#abbottabad”
Chart: Common Features of a Data Breach
At Sony, Financial, Personal Data of 77 Million Users Stolen
Piracy: Google Pulls App, Advocate to Take on Advertisers | Review: XOOM Doom is Overstated
- Google has removed popular music application Grooveshark from the Android Market, pulling the app creators battle with record labels over concerns it is facilitating music piracy. The search giant commented only to reiterate that it “removes apps from Android Market that violate [its] terms of service”, indicating that copyright issues motivated Google to remove the app from its marketplace, something that Apple did in August last year when Universal Music Group UK complained to the Cupertino-based company about the app, writes thenextweb.com.