Video Expected to Swallow 90% of Web Traffic by 2013
Here’s a pretty mind blowing prediction that was in heavy use at the Open Video Conference last weekend: According to Cisco Systems, by 2013 video will make up 90 percent of all Net traffic and 64 percent of mobile usage.
Many at the conference are anticipating an explosion of activity driven by soon-to-be-released online tools that allow searching and cutting/pasting of video similar to the way users can currently interact with text. Wikipedia is close to launching an editable online video encyclopedia to enhance the current one. The hope is to “revolutionize the popular reference site and goad content providers–from public broadcasters to the music industry–into allowing more video to enter the public domain.”
Wikipedia plans to offer ways for users to search the entire Web for importable videos, and plans to provide tools to edit, add to, and reorganize the clips within the Wikipedia website, just as is now done with text.
Today The Nielsen Company released a report tracking a similar shift toward video and social networking. Here are a few interesting findings:
- The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.
- Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same period.
- There are 87 percent more online social media users now than in 2003, with 883 percent more time devoted to those sites.
- In the last year alone, time spent on social networking sites has surged 73 percent.
- In February, social network usage exceeded Web-based e-mail usage for the first time.