When it comes down to online video properties, Microsoft is among the bottom feeders that have to live just on the eyeballs not glued to YouTube. In fact, via YouTube, Google managed to serve no less than 40% of the total of 12.7 billion online videos watched in November 2008 in the U.S., grabbing the vast majority of the audience, and leaving rivals to fight for scraps. This, because the competing Online Video Properties form a compact group with neither one accounting for more than 4% of the videos watched the past November.

“In November, Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with nearly 5.1 billion videos viewed (representing a 40% share of all videos viewed), with YouTube.com accounting for more than 98% of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 439 million videos (3.5%), followed by Viacom Digital with 325 million (2.6%), and Yahoo Sites with 304 million (2.4%). On the heels of a surge in viewership in October, Hulu retained its #6 position with 227 million videos viewed (1.8%),” comScore added.

Owning a 2.3% share of the videos served in November, Microsoft is virtually inexistent in comparison with Google's YouTube. Only 297 million videos were watched in November via MSN Video, which swallowed SoapBox. However, despite the small market share and volume of served videos, Microsoft's online properties attracted a total of some 35 million viewers, in the context in which Google accounted for 98 million users.

“Other notable findings from November 2008 include: 77 %of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video; the average online video viewer watched 273 minutes of video; 97 million viewers watched 5.1 billion videos on YouTube.com (52.3 videos per viewer); 52.5 million viewers watched 371 million videos on MySpace.com (7.1 videos per viewer); the duration of the average online video was 3.1 minutes; the duration of the average online video viewed at Hulu was 11.9 minutes, higher than any other video property in the top ten,” comScore explained.