The popularity of sites like YouTube continue to grow rapidly as people are finding more ways to consume online video offerings, according to a new report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The firm says that the share of adults who watch video on the Internet has nearly doubled since 2006, and that the practice is near-universal among young adults. What's helping it along? Broadband and mobile adoption.
Pew surveyed 2,253 US adults over the age of 18 and discovered that 62 percent of all Internet users watch video on sites like Hulu and YouTube—this number is up from 33 percent in December of 2006. Almost one in five say they do so on a daily basis, which Pew attributes to the continued proliferation of broadband (the firm says 63 percent of American adults have access to broadband, and we're sure it's no coincidence that this number seems to match up with those who watch online video). Among young adults—those between 18 and 29—online video watching is at 89 percent, with 36 percent watching every day.
Those aren't all keyboard cat videos, either. While only 16 percent of Internet users said they had watched a movie or TV show online in 2007, that number has now grown to 35 percent in 2009. Some (not just the geeks) are even making efforts to watch online video on their regular TVs—8 percent of all Internet users (23 percent of those who watch online) said that they have hooked up a computer to the boob tube so they can watch online video from the comfort of their couch's butt-groove.
Pew also noted that there's a certain type of user who has done this. In the company's broadband report from earlier this summer, 22 percent of adults had cut back on cable in recent months in order to save money, while only 9 percent had cut back on Internet access. The firm now says that those who have cut back on cable are more likely to have rerouted their online video viewing to the TV screen. This is only 32 percent of that 22 percent, however. Nielsen recently noted that 99 percent of all TV is still watched the traditional way, so advertisers shouldn't be shakin' in their boots just yet.
More users are watching video while out and about, too. According to Pew's data, 14 percent of cell phone users have watched video on their phones, up from 10 percent in 2007, and they're also more likely to record video than they are to watch it. Pew uses the recently launched iPhone 3GS as an example of a popular phone that lets users upload to YouTube instantly over the cell network, although this kind of capability is certainly not new to mobile devices. As more consumers start using smartphones with capabilities better than your run-of-the-mill free device, this number will surely continue to grow.
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