With the $44.6 million marriage proposal still on the table, taking Yahoo to the altar means for Microsoft getting a shortcut to becoming runner-up on the online advertising and search engine markets. But at the same time, there are additional aspects of the online race for eyeballs where the combination of Yahoo and Microsoft is bound to deliver just a superficial flesh wound to Google. In terms of the online video market, the combination of the Sunnyvale and Redmond companies would create just a puddle in comparison to the ocean owned by the Mountain View-based search engine.

The latest statistics provided by Internet metrics company comScore reveal that YouTube served one out over every three videos viewed in January in the U.S. "Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property in January with nearly 3.4 billion videos viewed (34.3% share of videos), gaining 1.7 share points versus the previous month. YouTube.com accounted for more than 96% of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 584 million (6%), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 315 million (3.2%) and Microsoft Sites with 199 million (2%)," comScore revealed.

While one third out off all videos watched in January in the U.S. might not sound as much of a performance, the fact of the matter is that Google has outpaced all competition in taking the lion's share of no less than 9.8 billion video items. By comparison, Yahoo sites only accounted for 315 million of all videos watched in January, with Microsoft at a low of approximately 200 million.

The statistics are a tad different when it comes down to the actual audience. Some 80 million unique viewers crowded Google in the first month of 2008, while just 36 million went to Yahoo and 20 million to Microsoft. With much of these audiences overlapping, a successful Microsoft and Yahoo marriage would not erode audience from under Google and would only succeed in capturing a little over 5% of the online video market. Not even close to Google's 34.3%.

"More than three-quarters of the total U.S. Internet audience (75.7%) viewed online video. 78.5 million viewers watched 3.25 billion videos on YouTube.com (41.4 videos per viewer). The average online video duration was 2.9 minutes. The average online video viewer consumed 70 videos," comScore added.