The New Boob Tube? Trends in Online Video

Consumers and businesses use of online video has risen in popularity this year, with more and more offerings popping up. Users advantages to Internet video include the abilty to watch past or missed episodes or to watch special online-only clips.

Many networks have offered online versions of their shows. For instance, if you missed an episode of the Daily Show, you can catch up on it by logging on to the show's site. Google offers the current week's episode of the UPN comedy "Everybody Hates Chris." Companies often offer broadband channels such as Verizon's Broadband Beat and MTV's Overdrive that feature mini-shows, music videos and movie trailers. Beta versions of video search engines have been introduced by Google and Yahoo to make pursuit of online videos easier.

This information shouldn't be surprising. Web metrics firm ComScore Networks found that over 94 million people in the US (that's half the population of the US online) have watched streaming video online, with the viewing time averaging out to about 73 minutes a month per user.

This poises Internet video as a contender for television, but TV producers and network execs shouldn't worry quite yet. A major problem with streaming video is the quality (skips, fuzziness, bandwidth) and problems with users' Internet connection speeds. However, the technologies to deal with this issue are being developed as we speak and pretty soon, the question won't be "What do I want to watch?" but "Where do I want to watch it?"