Don't tell the boss: most 'Net video viewing happens at work [ArsTechnica]
Uh oh. It appears that Nielsen Online has discovered the dirty little secret of online video viewers - most web video viewing occurs at work. The market research firm's October 2008 VideoCensus has revealed that 65 percent of online video fans watch during the 9 AM to 5 PM time period. That compares to the 49 percent who watch online video between 5 PM and 8 PM.
YouTube is far and away the most popular online video portal, hosting 5 billion video streams during October. That compares with Hulu's 250 million streams during the same time period.
As this article says, a little YouTube break after lunch may be okay, but it sounds like there's quite a bit more video watching going on.
Time to get back to work.
Time to get back to work.
Joost Scraps Video App [Multichannel News]
One company that sought to redefine television with a software application that used peer-to-peer protocols to receive high quality video on computers has decided to shelve the application in lieu of a web-based video sharing version of the service. Joost launched its video application nearly two years ago, but the P2P approach never caught on with consumers. Based on Joost's announcement, Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey is quoted in this article saying P2P, “as a platform for legal consumer video is dead.”
Twitter's hunting for a moneymaker [CNET News]
It's the Internet's most popular microblogging service, but Twitter has yet to create a revenue stream for the company. Users can post status updates up to 140 characters long, and can follow the updates of their friends. Twitter has announced that it is seeking a product manager focused on revenue generation. Will there be Twitter advertising? Or, will their revenue model take the form of corporate Twitter accounts, as Twitter's CEO has suggested.
NCTA Signs On With Family Online Safety Institute [Multichannel News]
Yesterday, the trade association representing the cable industry, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) announced that it has joined the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI). NCTA is joining FOSI to continue its efforts to promote and enhance online safety for children and families. Membership in FOSI promises to augment the cable industry's efforts to provide the most effective tools for parents to ensure their children's safety online.
Last year, the cable industry launched PointSmart.ClickSafe, a comprehensive online safety and media literacy initiative to help educate parents about online safety and appropriate use of the Internet by their children. Cable’s approach centers on three components: control, including parental controls; education, especially media literacy; and choice, helping children make the right choices when online.
When will we every have studies or research that doesn't LEAP to innaccurate conclusions? Just because the rate of video viewing is higher between 9am - 5pm, it doesn't mean that "most web viewing occurs at work!! If that assumption is going to made, follow it up with some facts.... like supplying the percentage of web viewing from corporate domains. By making this assumption, we are ignoring factors such as:
9-5 is a time range that also includes the time that most kids are in school... parents have more time to watch online video when they don't have to attend to their children.
What are peek email reading times? If peek email reading times fall in the 9-5 range, it makes perfect since that video viewing would also peek due to the large amount of emails with links to video content.
Simply tying a high viewing rate to normal work hours doesn't consider factors such as the percentage of working people that actually have internet access or have access to video content (proxy servers).
Just another example of organizations and studies trying to make more out of what is actually there. Let's stop spreading the nonsense.
Posted by: Brad Zimmerman | Friday, December 19, 2008 at 11:05 AM