U.S. users are spending almost 50% more time watching online video now than they did a year ago, according to the latest monthly metrics from the Nielsen Online Video Census.

The ongoing study, which measures total video consumption over the Web (except video advertising), found that users who watched Internet video in May spent an average 188.7 minutes doing so. That’s 48.9% more time than they spent in May 2008.

Nielsen Online also found that both the audience for online video and its usage are growing. Unique U.S. visitors reached 133.8 million in May, up 12.8% year over year, and they consumed 10 billion streams, a 34.8% increase from May 2008.

However, compared to consumption in April 2009, May saw a slight drop in both streams per viewer (down 7.3%) and in viewing minutes (down 8.3%).

The usage rankings for Web sites most closely associated with video remained as they were in April, with Hulu.com beating Yahoo for the second time to take the number two slot behind YouTube in terms of videos streamed, 382.3 million to 208.2 million.

Yahoo still leads the upstart Hulu.com for the month in unique visitors, however, with 25.2 million to its 10.1 million.

A separate study by Trendstream, a technology research firm, charts just how big a role online video plays in Web users’ lives. According to the report, online video was the largest social platform on the U.S. internet in January 2009, with 72% of U.S. users watching clips, compared to 46% who read a blog and 41% who managed a social profile page.

“This is a revolution, from the one-way broadcast medium we have grown up with, to a two-way consumer-driven one,” author and Trendstream founder Tom Smith says in the report, “Online Video: 2009 is Primetime”.

And it’s an active revolution, as Smith points out, with 39% of users sharing video they found with friends, and 32% uploading their own video during the month. The change also takes in all age groups: While 82% of U.S. users 16 to 17 watched Web video in January, so did 65% of those 55 to 64. Among those same groups, 525 of teens shared a video, but so did 29% of the older group; 465 of teens uploaded their own video—as did 21% of us oldsters.

While it may touch more users than social networks, that doesn’t mean video will develop siloed off from social communities. In fact, the second biggest access point for video consumption—after YouTube, of course—is e-mail, with 35% of respondents telling Trendstream they’d watched a video sent in that channel during the previous week.

After e-mail, users reported that in the prior week they got their video from:

• Music sites (23%)

• Yahoo (21%)

• News sites (20%)

• Film sites (19%)

• MySpace (10%)

• Facebook (9%)

• Friends’ blogs (8%)

• Hulu.com (8%)

• MSN Video (8%)

• Google Video (7%)

• Other blogs (6%)

Trendstream notes that the Web site supported by the major networks still gets less video reach than the blogs produced by friends, and much less than the social-network platforms of Myspace and Facebook.

When consumerschoose to share a video with their friends, they most often do so via e-mail (49% said they’d done so in the prior month) or via a social network (23%). Only 14% said they’d shared video within a video sharing Web site during the month, showing just how this traffic is spreading out beyond established online channels.

And sharing should be on the mind of every marketer who hopes to catch a viral buzz with video, because users told Trendstream that they pay much more attention to a video clip shared by a friend (5.5 on a 1-10 scale) than they do to an online video ad (3 on the same index.)

The lesson here, according to the report, is that “the future of the moving picture will be driven by viral and consumer distribution…The mass market for video will be around open platforms that allow uploading and sharing of consumer content.”

U.S. users are spending almost 50% more time watching online video now than they did a year ago, according to the latest monthly metrics from the Nielsen Online Video Census.

The ongoing study, which measures total video consumption over the Web (except video advertising), found that users who watched Internet video in May spent an average 188.7 minutes doing so. That’s 48.9% more time than they spent in May 2008.

Nielsen Online also found that both the audience for online video and its usage are growing. Unique U.S. visitors reached 133.8 million in May, up 12.8% year over year, and they consumed 10 billion streams, a 34.8% increase from May 2008.

However, compared to consumption in April 2009, May saw a slight drop in both streams per viewer (down 7.3%) and in viewing minutes (down 8.3%).

The usage rankings for Web sites most closely associated with video remained as they were in April, with Hulu.com beating Yahoo for the second time to take the number two slot behind YouTube in terms of videos streamed, 382.3 million to 208.2 million.

Yahoo still leads the upstart Hulu.com for the month in unique visitors, however, with 25.2 million to its 10.1 million.

A separate study by Trendstream, a technology research firm, charts just how big a role online video plays in Web users’ lives. According to the report, online video was the largest social platform on the U.S. internet in January 2009, with 72% of U.S. users watching clips, compared to 46% who read a blog and 41% who managed a social profile page.

“This is a revolution, from the one-way broadcast medium we have grown up with, to a two-way consumer-driven one,” author and Trendstream founder Tom Smith says in the report, “Online Video: 2009 is Primetime”.

And it’s an active revolution, as Smith points out, with 39% of users sharing video they found with friends, and 32% uploading their own video during the month. The change also takes in all age groups: While 82% of U.S. users 16 to 17 watched Web video in January, so did 65% of those 55 to 64. Among those same groups, 525 of teens shared a video, but so did 29% of the older group; 465 of teens uploaded their own video—as did 21% of us oldsters.

While it may touch more users than social networks, that doesn’t mean video will develop siloed off from social communities. In fact, the second biggest access point for video consumption—after YouTube, of course—is e-mail, with 35% of respondents telling Trendstream they’d watched a video sent in that channel during the previous week.

After e-mail, users reported that in the prior week they got their video from:

• Music sites (23%)

• Yahoo (21%)

• News sites (20%)

• Film sites (19%)

• MySpace (10%)

• Facebook (9%)

• Friends’ blogs (8%)

• Hulu.com (8%)

• MSN Video (8%)

• Google Video (7%)

• Other blogs (6%)

Trendstream notes that the Web site supported by the major networks still gets less video reach than the blogs produced by friends, and much less than the social-network platforms of Myspace and Facebook.

When consumerschoose to share a video with their friends, they most often do so via e-mail (49% said they’d done so in the prior month) or via a social network (23%). Only 14% said they’d shared video within a video sharing Web site during the month, showing just how this traffic is spreading out beyond established online channels.

And sharing should be on the mind of every marketer who hopes to catch a viral buzz with video, because users told Trendstream that they pay much more attention to a video clip shared by a friend (5.5 on a 1-10 scale) than they do to an online video ad (3 on the same index.)

The lesson here, according to the report, is that “the future of the moving picture will be driven by viral and consumer distribution…The mass market for video will be around open platforms that allow uploading and sharing of consumer content.”