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US Internet viewers watched a staggering 8.9 billion videos last month.

Last month!

99% of these were on Youtube. So reports  247wallst.com.

This number is simply astonishing.

On Youtube, the average number of videos watched per person was 74.

The vast majority of content on Youtube is what we would call ‘viewer’ generated.  All of it is viewer posted. It’s the real indicator of the democratizaton of video online.  The videos may be mostly dumb, highly personal self-creations, but it is resonating with the marketplace in a gigantic way.

Hulu, which runs only professional premium content had a comfortable 38 million unique viewers last month, which is nothing to sneeze at, but 8.9 billion it is not.

When it comes to comparing these online stats to conventional broadcast numbers, don’t even bother to try. With 120 million videos currently on Youtube, the three networks working together would have to create original content and air it for….ready… 4,500  years to reach the volume that Youtube has reached currently.

4,500 years.

That is not going to happen.

The technology is speaking extremely clearly to anyone who wants to hear it.

And it is fairly easy to see where the future is.

And it is not on NBC.

And remember, those hundreds of thousands of hours of content were shot, produced and uploaded for free.

It’s an astonishing number.

From the time the printing press was invented it took almost 50 years for the number of books in circulation in Europe to go from next to nothing to 15 million.

We are only 3 years into the world of Youtube and online video.

Where will we be in 50?

Michael Rosenblum

For more than 30 years, Michael Rosenblum has been on the cutting edge of the digital video journalism revolution. During this time, he has lead a drive for video literacy, and the complete rethinking of how television is made and controlled. His work has included: The complete transitioning of The BBC's national network (UK) to a VJ-driven model, starting in 2002. The complete conversion of The Voice of America, the United State's Government's broadcasting agency, (and the largest broadcaster in the world), from short wave radio to television broadcasting and webcasting using the VJ paradigm (1998-present). The construction of NYT Television, a New York Times Company, and the largest producer of non-fiction television in the US. Rosenblum was both the founder and President of NYT TV, (all based on this paradigm (1996-1998). The President and Founder of Video News International, a global VJ-driven newsgathering company, with more than 100 journalists around the world. (1993-1996). Other clients include Spectrum News, Verizon and CBS News.

1 Comment
  • david hoffman September 08, 2009

    Michael:
    Your post here is extraordinarily important. I was one of the early adopters of Google Adwords and became successful selling my videos and the products of clients that way. It got to be too expensive and it stopped working as well. YouTube is a more magnificent opportunity to find target audiences and to influence them to support ideas, values, organizations, products, services, individuals. Right now, it is truly the Wild West. Available to all. Not expensive. Brilliant if you know how to use Youtube promotion, advertising, YouTube Ad words, overlays, and more. and it has given me a whole new line of work, consulting to companies who want to take advantage of this. Right now I have two big ones and three startups. What fun.

    David Hoffman
    http://www.YouTube.com/allinaday