Youtube Statistics – The Ultimate Time Suck

YouTube Logo - Statistics Media

YouTube Statistics – Where did my time go?

How many times have you gone to YouTube to watch some video you’ve heard about, then 7 videos later you wonder where the time has gone? or perhaps 15 videos later… 30 videos…

Well you are not alone. 77% of users coming to YouTube come intending to watch 1 video but end up watching several.

YouTube has become a time sucker and a place people have gone to alleviate their boredom. But first a quick summary of some Internet & YouTube statistics.

Internet Usage

  • Adults spend 15+ hours on Internet a Week
  • Expected 217 MM US internet Users by 2012 (71% Penetration)
  • 55% broadband access, will grow to 90% by 2012
  • Online video viewing increased 35% year over year

YouTube Statistics

  • #4 Largest Site on the Internet
  • #1 Largest video site on the web
  • 300MM Worldwide Visitors a Month
  • 100 Million Visitors per Month
  • 5 Billion Video Streams Every month – 40% of all videos online
  • (Do the Math – 5 Billion / 300 million worldwide visitors = 17 streams a month per person)
  • 15 Hours of video uploaded every minute

Did you know: In August 2008, YouTube became the #2 search engines over Yahoo on Web (#1 is Google)

Youtube’s Influence

Youtube has become a monster in it’s influence on our culture. With nearly 3.5 million people visiting the site every single day, the type of videos they watch and interact with has a huge impact on the way we view the world. Not only in public squares such as the way the Obama political camp utilized YouTube to connect with younger viewers, but also the unhindered access to anything and everything created by anybody with a message they want to share. The type of influence one individual can have when their videos go viral is unprecedented.

Also with the lack of protection, children and teens have full access to any type of videos found on YouTube. Youtube has tried to keep bad content off their site, but due to the 15 hours of video uploaded every minute, there are always a large amount of inappropriate videos up at any given time. The only protection as of now is the need to create a profile and click a button verifying your age. Basically not much.

There is a great benefits YouTube has brought in connecting people together, but it has also brought about an epidemic of people spending hours on end wasting countless hours watching videos they weren’t even intending to watch. Rather than children going out to play sports and socializing, it is common to see children and adults alike sitting in front of their computers just browsing through YouTube videos. The site itself is optimized to pull the user in to watch as many videos as possible. It’s basically free TV where you have all the control.

[poll id=”7″]

Youtube has been very useful and everyone uses it. No one would argue it is a “useful” and “fun” website, but the question is…

  • Have video sites like YouTube been a positive or negative influence to our society?

Share your thoughts!

UPDATE: SEE UPDATED 2011 YOUTUBE STATS HERE

You may also like

23 Comments

    1. From several news sources and articles. Since I am in the internet business I run across lot of very interesting information which I try to share with others. Unfortunately since this was written a while back, I can’t quite remember which source it was from!

  1. Does the second value represent US visitors only?

    ■300MM Worldwide Visitors a Month
    ■100 Million Visitors per Month

    Thanks.

  2. Hello!

    I am writting a paper about social and political effect of You Tube and run into a problem of finding statistical information, but thanks to you I have something to put on my paper now. I was wondering if you have more information about YouTube could you send it to me.
    Thank you in advance.

    Best wishes,
    Rovshen

    1. Rovshen,

      Though I have so many drafts of articles that talk about statistical information.. I can never seem to get around to publishing them! 🙂

      For now I’ll point you to mashable.com – you might be able to find some good stuff there.

  3. Hi,

    This is a great information thanks a lot. Can you help me with a similar type of data for a region like India? I am badly looking out for it.

  4. Hi Guys,

    I am currently doing a market research on user penetration and trend on,
    1. How many internet users contribute into video and online document sites and their growth
    2. How many internet users contribute creative content including home movies, short stories, animes, ideas etc.

    Could you guys give me any information related to these or point to where I can find. I greatly appreciate your comments and thoughts.

    Thanks

    1. I unfortunately don’t know where you would be able to find the information and statistics you are looking for. Where I would start is to search for any recent media use reports. We have links to a few media reports on this site on various posts but mostly on teenage or children use. Anyone else have any suggestions?

  5. hi

    i am doing an essay about media influence on our worldview do you have any websites suggestions for me to get some more information about this.

    thanx

    1. Hey Peter,

      unfortunately i don’t have one resource i pulled this information from.
      it’s been a while since I pulled this data.

      However finding information about youtube’s history and youtube statistic is not too difficult to find on the web if you search for “youtube statistics”.

      Good luck on your essay.
      If you end up collecting some good info worth sharing with the world – let us know and perhaps we can highlight some of the findings here.

  6. hi, im doing a report on keeping youtube accessible in my school and i need facts to back it up that you tube is good. can you give mr some information ?

  7. Hello,
    these figures are great but coming from a journalistic background, I’d say you really have to quote your sources and mention date range etc. because otherwise, anyone can use maybe wrong info and that becomes a whole mess!
    Thanks for your work anyway!
    ludo

    1. thanks ludo. I usually try to link to the reference articles at the end of these articles. Forgot to do this one as the info came from all over the web. doh!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *