You Tube vs Yahoo

Earlier this week, Yahoo announced a revamped video hosting service. Many saw it as a threat to You Tube (which has issues of its own.) In reality, Yahoo! has its work cut out. I checked with folks over at Hitwise, a traffic analysis and research firm, and they sent me data which shows that You Tube is miles ahead of their competition, including Yahoo! Video.

For instance, YouTube’s market share of Internet visits has increased 110% over the past three months (week ending May 27 versus week ending March 4, 2006). Yahoo! Video has increased its market share of visits 22% for that same time period. You Tube usage metrics are ahead of Yahoo. For April 2006, YouTube’s average session time for that month was 15 minutes 33 seconds. Yahoo! Video’s average session time was 15 minutes 13 seconds.

In April 2005, Yahoo! Video’s average session time was 10 minutes 29 seconds and YouTube was not up yet. And just for kicks, for the week ending May 27, 2006, YouTube was the #43 ranked website among all websites, while Yahoo! Video was ranked #205 among all websites.