While Youtube is practically synonymous with online video these days, it’s certainly not the only player in town, if you’ll pardon the pun. Hulu’s number of unique viewers skyrocketed 42 percent in the month of February, riding on the heels of its popular Super Bowl commercials. Hulu is now the fourth largest video site, behind Google (Youtube), Fox (Myspace), and Yahoo!.

Hulu’s growth is certainly impressive considering that most of Hulu’s offerings are all from network television, which typically don’t go viral like many of Youtube’s offerings. However as more cash-strapped consumers ditch their cable subscriptions and look to stream their favorite shows online instead, Hulu’s growth could easily continue.

Overall, 75 percent of people who signed online in February viewed at least one video during the month. While Hulu served only 2.5 percent of those videos, a full quarter of video watchers saw at least one video at Hulu (which for those who are still following the math is almost a fifth of the Internet populace).

Google maintained its lead at the largest video provider, showing over 5 million videos to 100 million unique visitors, almost 41 percent of all videos shown.

And as a final note, if productivity is what we need to get us out of this economic rut, these statistics don’t bode very well for us. Over 13 million videos were viewed in February, averaging out to about five hours per user. So much for actually getting work done at the office.

About The Author

Michael Kaufmann, lover of all things science and gadget, is a contributing editor at Blast. He can be reached at [email protected].

4 Responses

  1. Naomi

    Hulu is a great site, but is it reasonable to assume that consumers would buy a TV that only gets Fox/NBC content? They need to get in touch with reality if they think they will dominate the market.

    Reply
  2. Manuel

    With enough marketing, (that of combined efforts of Fox/NBC) they could make the dolts whom still watch TV, honestly believe the Earth was flat again.

    Reply

Leave a Reply