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Facts & Trends
Broadband Internet connectivity is growing rapidly and video content is in demand. Consider these facts and trends when planning your next marketing project or product launch. The competition for mindshare is not only your direct competitors, but also every Web site vying for the attention and business of your prospects and customers.
Internet Video Marketing
According to a research report published in February 2003 by Interactive Media Strategies, video e-mail ranks as the most popular use of webcasting among corporate marketers who have deployed online promotional campaigns that incorporate multimedia.
Streaming Media
In a report published by AccuStream iMedia Research, it is forcasted that streaming media will generate between $282 and $606 million dollars in 2005, with the actual total likely being in the mid to uppper range of the forecast.
According to AccuStream iMedia Research, video streams served during January and February 2004 by the top ten sites averaged 523 million, compared to 292 million in 2003. They also noted a 104 percent video stream growth spurt in 2003, with expectations of another 28 percent in 2004.
Research published in September 2003 from In-Stat/MDR projects video streaming subscription services will generate $4.5 billion dollars in fees in 2007. That's more than four times the size of the market this year, according to the research company.
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, the audience for streaming media at work now exceeds 20 million viewers per month. They also claim that a majority of Internet users now watch and listen to streaming media.
Alexa Research estimates that the amount of streaming media on the Internet grows by more than tenfold every six months.
Pew Internet & American Life Project Tracking surveys (March 2000 - April 2003) provide rankings of what Americans do online. Watching video is more popular than instant messaging or playing games online. Fifety-three percent (53%) of Americans online [approximately 109 million] watch a video clip or listen to an audio clip.
Gartner estimates that more than 21,000 businesses used some form of streaming media in 2001, and it projects that the number of businesses using streaming media will exceed 225,000 by 2005.
An estimated 103 million Americans age 12 and older have ever used Internet audio or video broadcasts, according to a January 2003 study by Arbitron Inc. and Edison Media Research.
Over 3.9 billion video streams were served during 2002,
a 52 percent increase over the number recorded the previous year,
according to a market report from AccuStream iMedia Research. Broadband video streams grew at an annual rate of 84 percent in 2002, and accounted for 63 percent of the total streams served.
MLB.com, the official Major League Baseball Web site, offered for the first-time ever a live video webcast of a Major League Baseball Game (Texas Rangers vs. New York Yankees).
ESPN.com’s overall Web traffic is up more than 100 percent in the last year. According to the company, the site receives roughly 30 million page views per day, is visited by about 12 million unique users per month, and serves up millions of video and audio streams per month. During the week, about 62 percent of the traffic is on a high-speed connection, so users can access high-quality audio and video streams.
ESPN.com’s adding of video highlights on Feb. 17, 2003 to its front page, targeting high-speed users, brought the company almost 550,000 registrants in the first 48 hours, USA Today reported.
Media Players
Aug. 2002: AOL Time Warner updated its popular Winamp MP3 player, adding video capabilities that bring the program into direct competition with streaming
media giants Apple Computer, Microsoft and RealNetworks.
Sept. 2002: Microsoft unveils its Windows Media 9 Series, which the company claims offers a number of firsts, including the ability to stream 5.1 channel surround sound audio and high-definition video with file sizes as small as half of those of DVDs. Microsoft spent $500 million in R&D on digital media since the previous version of Windows Media.
According to comScore Media Metrix, the various iterations of RealPlayer had 30.8 million unique home users in June 2002, compared with 30.1 million for versions of Windows Media Player.
Broadband Internet Access
As reported by iMedia Connection/MDR on July 8, 2005, the FCC concludes that high-speed internet use among households and businesses increased 34 percent in 2004 for a total of 37.9 million lines.
According to a June 2005 press release by In-Stat/MDR, it is estimated that broadband services will generate $15 billion more per year than dialup by 2009. It is also forcasted that the market will grow to nearly 50 percent of the population in 2009, which is a significant increase from the 28.8 percent in 2004.
The number of US households using cable modems, DSL, or other broadband technologies to connect to the Internet will increase by more than 40 percent during 2003. By the end of 2008, the total number of broadband subscribers will soar to 64 million, or 59 percent of all US homes, according to a January 2003 report released by technology research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics.
PricewaterhouseCoopers forecasts a 30 percent annual compound growth rate for global broadband connections, resulting in 153 million broadband-enabled households by 2007.
According to the Wall Street Journal, 100,000 new DSL and cable modem subscribers are added every week, with total U.S. penetration closing in on 19 percent of all households toward the end of 2003.
According to Yankee Group, over 7 million home users now have high-speed Internet access.
The number of U.K. businesses with a broadband Internet
connection has doubled over the last twelve months, according to new
figures released (Sept. 2003) by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC). In
a survey of 4,000 firms, the BCC found that 39% used broadband Internet,
up from 19% last year.
Twenty-eight percent of U.S. online households connect to the Internet via a broadband connection, according to a survey (released in Nov. 2002) by Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner, Inc. During a 28-month survey period, the rate of broadband Internet use in the United States has nearly tripled, experiencing a 9 percent average monthly growth rate.
The number of U.S. broadband users increased 59 percent in
2002, while dial-up (narrowband) connections declined 10 percent,
according to a report released by New York-based audience measurement firm
Nielsen//NetRatings. In December 2002, 33.6 million U.S. users went online using a broadband connection, versus 74.4 million who used a dial-up connection.
According to NetSmart, one third of Internet viewers will have high-speed access by 2003.
In five years, Internet users will have access to information 64 times
the volume of the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress,
according to IDC. The firm expects Internet traffic will double each year through 2007. Broadband access will be the largest driver of the surge in access to Web-based information, IDC believes.
Mobile Phones and Handheld Devices
On February 12, 2003, Australian researchers at Bell Labs unveiled a chip that lets cell-phone users receive high-quality face-to-face video and other streaming media at rates faster than a home broadband connection.
According to Thin Multimedia, as of April 2002 there are more than 400,000 video-enabled phones on the market and usage has increased to an average of 586,000 media hits and 113,000 video downloads per month.
The PDA or Handheld device has an installed base of 13 million people in the USA alone. Projected to become a $70 billion+ industry by 2003, analyst are expecting more than 40 million users.
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