there are three types of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Much has been made of Google's acquisition of YouTube and part of that story is predicated upon YouTube's statistics. The most quoted are that YouTube serves up 100 million video streams each day; that 63 million people worldwide visited YouTube; that 16 million come from the U.S.; and that the site is the 17th most visited property on the Internet. Mostly you read that GoogTube is now the largest provider of video on the Internet with 50% of the market.


There are so many numbers there that Mark Twain (the author of the above quote) would be proud. However, Andrew Lipsman pointed out a significant problem in some of the research data.

"One visit," he says, "might result in only one video stream being viewed, while another visit can result in 20 video streams being viewed. With the potential to insert an ad in every stream, clearly all visits are not of equal value ... The problem is compounded if market share is measured only within a few select sites, and not across the entire Web."

Oh, and you may ask who is largest if you compare apples-to-apples. I have that answer for you:

If you look at the number of streams initiated by U.S. users, MySpace is by far #1 with 20% share, with Yahoo sites collectively are #2 with 11% share, and YouTube #3 with 9%. If you add in Google Video's 1% share, the new GoogTube is still in third place.