Facebook was sixth for online video in January 2011
171 million US Internet users watched online video content in January 2011 for an average of 14.5 hours per viewer. The total US Internet audience engaged in nearly 4.9 billion viewing sessions last month.
While Facebook dominates in the online photo space, the company only took sixth place in US online video properties, ranked by unique video viewers, according to comScore. The social network saw 42.1 million unique viewers experience 122.6 million viewing sessions for an average of 15.4 minutes per viewer.
Google sites, driven primarily by YouTube, ranked as the top online video content property with 144.1 million unique viewers. Vevo captured second place with 51.0 million viewers, Yahoo sites were third with 48.7 million viewers, Viacom Digital took fourth position with 48.1 million viewers, while AOL settled for firth with 44.5 million viewers.
Facebook should be able to make it in to the top three rather quickly. In fact, the website has been in second place before: back in August 2010. This just shows how close the race for second place currently is: only Google has had nothing to worry about since it is far ahead in first place.
After Facebook stabilizes in second place, however, it has to figure out how to unseat YouTube. Palo Alto has to make online video more exciting (read: more social) for users on its website than what Mountain View currently has with YouTube. That is no easy task. Still, if any company can pull it off, it's Facebook.
