User-Generated Web Content Will Grow Rapidly Through 2010

InStat: User-Generated Content (UGC), such as that found on YouTube and MySpace, will continue to grow significantly in popularity and generate increasing revenue over the next several years. By 2010, the volume of downloads/views on these sites will surpass 65 billion, and revenues tied to UGC video are expected to exceed $850 million by 2010. Revenues are those directly linked to videos in the form of banner/skyscrapers, embedded video, Google Adsense, and/or branded pages/channels.

Democratization of media affords users the opportunity to express their opinions, rate content, and vote for their favorite videos. In addition, what may currently seem like ‘the Wild West’ is actually an industry that has started to see idiosyncratic ‘judiciary bodies’ and ‘rules of law’ imposed by each player within this market.

• The size of downloads/views are estimated to eclipse 1.1 exabytes of data by 2010, with uploads growing to more than 9.1 petabytes.

• 23% of the dozens of UCG sites studied currently support mobile access, with others making announcements for this support in the near future.

• YouTube holds the highest market share for video, but MySpace has the most visitors.

Recent In-Stat research, User Generated Content--More than Just Watching the YouTube and Hangin' in MySpace

Publ 20060927