Media search and discovery site MeFeedia this morning released its first State of the Vlogosphere report since 2007. The main take-away: video blogs have exploded since the last update, but most vloggers stick to the best known video hosting sites for distribution and promotion purposes.
No surprises there, but since MeFeedia’s video search engine self-reportedly tracks over 30,000 video sources across the Web, the company slapped some interesting numbers on the most apparent trends.
How many vlog?
While MeFeedia tracked about 20,000 unique vlogs back in 2007, it’s currently keeping tabs on over 110,000, which represents an increase of more than 500% over the past 3 years. International vlog numbers are growing faster than the U.S., with Spanish-language video blogs leading the way.
Turns out all those vloggers are less keen on setting up an independent video blog and rather flocking to the major online video hosting and sharing services to try and attract an audience and make some money off their videos.
Where do they vlog?
Unsurprisingly, the most popular platform is YouTube with 36%, up from 9% based on MeFeedia’s 2007 findings.
After YouTube come Blip.tv with a respectable 14%, Vimeo with 9%, MySpace with 7% and the only European service, DailyMotion, with 3%. About 13% uses other video sharing platforms, although I find it surprising that Facebook didn’t make this list. Independent publishers, meaning vloggers who set up their own websites and video hosting platforms, make up 18% of the pie. The most popular tool for them: WordPress.
Pro vloggers
Professional vloggers (i.e. producers of Web series) tend to follow a dual strategy: posting content on their own websites while syndicating videos to popular video hosting platforms simultaneously.
According to MeFeedia, the average pro-vlogger syndicates their video to 3.6 sites. Their top choices are YouTube, Blip.tv and MySpace Video.
Syndication trends
MeFeedia also spotted some trends in syndication and says Google’s FeedBurner is no longer the “default” syndication mechanism, as MRSS tools have become much more sophisticated over the past few years. They’re also being offered by YouTube, DailyMotion and also Videopress as a built-in feature.
MeFeedia also says automated posting and tracking tools such as TubeMogul and Hey!Spread have gained popularity as they provide content creators a “produce once, post everywhere” model that saves them time.
Video consumption
According to MeFeedia, 1024×768 is most popular screen resolution (40%), followed by 1280×800 (20%), 1280×1024 (10%). The most popular for TV viewing is the Playstation 3, followed by the Nintendo Wii.
The report also states the watch time for short-form videos is 1:15 minutes and 8:50 minutes for long-form content, on average. Unsurprisingly, people are watching more short-form than long-form video content.
The growth in video consumption on mobile platforms was one of the fastest, particularly on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry devices (in that order). The iPhone was the fastest growing mobile device for video consumption (by 6x), which MeFeedia correctly deems largely fueled by the built-in YouTube support of the Apple phone.
(Image credit: Flickr / Clintus McGintus)