Saturday, May 3, 2008

There's more to online video than YouTube.

The Google-owned video-sharing site attracted 70 percent of the U.S. traffic to video Web sites in December 2007, but dozens of lesser-known sites are still fighting for a share of the $500 million that will be spent on advertising at online video sites this year. Nearly 53 percent of Americans will watch videos on the Web regularly in 2008, a 12 percent increase over 2007, according to eMarketer. Video clips shorter than five minutes dominate viewers' attention online, but a growing number of consumers are interested in marathi poem and live streaming video, Verna said.

Los Altos-based Ustream.tv Inc. raised $11.1 million in April for its live streaming video site, which launched publicly in March 2007.

The site has almost 3 million unique viewers a month, and 80 percent watch live video instead of archived programs. Ustream is able to better monetize its content because it can deliver viewers who watch video for an average of 30 to 40 minutes, said founder Brad Hunstable.

Verna said more sites will offer streaming video in coming months because of the popularity of the "citizen journalist," the decreasing cost of broadband access and the Internet's increasing bandwidth capabilities. Ustream is entering the field early enough that it could be a market leader, he said.

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