$1.65 billion for YouTube looks like a steal now — or does it?
ComScore tells us Google is trouncing its competitors in the online-video market. In January 2008, one in three online videos viewed in the U.S. were watched on YouTube — totaling 3.4 billion videos. The next closest competitor, Fox Interactive — mostly MySpace — had a mere 6 percent share, with just under 600 million videos watched.
Even more astounding are the average minutes per viewer. A typical YouTube visitor spent almost two hours a month on the site, watching 41.4 videos each. Now if only Google could find a way to make money off all of those screen-glued eyeballs. Until then, we won't know if YouTube at $1.65 billion was really a steal.