Short Form or Long Form Web Video – You Decide?
Which do you prefer? It seems that short-form videos still dominate online viewing, but I also believe that’s because it’s what came first; in fact, initially YouTube had a 100 MB upload limit. Metacafe recently commissioned a study (July 2009) on – who in America is watching, what they are watching, and how much. They surveyed nearly 2,000 people between the ages of 12 to 64.
This survey found that over one-third (37%) of viewers watched short professional videos, and found them to be as entertaining as full-length TV shows. These shorts are especially popular with the younger viewer – this should be a cue to Brand advertisers to stretch their marketing to both television and online.
Other stats worth highlighting:
- 43% of all Internet users watch online videos weekly
- 70% of males 18-24 watch weekly, including the 25% who watch daily
- 56% of females 12-17 watch weekly, including the 13% who watch daily
- 30% of all 55-64 year olds watch online videos weekly
- 34% of TV viewers also use their computer at least half the time while watching TV (that would be me!)
- 20% of all online video viewers say they watch less TV due to online video
On the flip side, due to the success of Hulu and other pure-play providers, over the last couple years they’ve been able to convince us, the viewers, that the Internet is a good place a watch long form video. Twenty-five percent of online video viewers are watching full-length TV shows, and 15% are watching full-length movies online.
YouTube definitely is the leader in online video, as they’ve built up an amazing 5.5B streams (April 2009), so they are clearly one of the top destinations. But even, YouTube now provides us with long form video, be it TV shows to movies.
So which form will reign supreme?
There are monetizing issues with both short and long form. YouTube has still not seen its full earning potential. Hulu has business model challenges in that they advertise 4-minutes per hour, which is great for the viewer, however, Hulu is still a business and how will they maintain the ability to show premium content? This is just food for thought….as the intent of this blog entry was to find out – which do you prefer – short form or long form online video?
Learn more at reelseo.com, mediapost.com, contentinople.com
Download this pdf for a complete list of the survey findings
Blog post by Juliette Tai, Director of Research & Competitive Intelligence, Greenlight360
