Nielsen Online Video Usage Stats

Online video usage in the U.S. remained relatively flat in terms of uniques and total streams in Dec. compared to the previous month, according to Nielsen Online. The engagement metric of time spent per viewer actually declined by 4%.

Overall Online Video Usage (U.S.)

                           Nov-08      Dec-08   Percent Change
Unique Viewers (000)      124,262     124,611        0%
Total Streams (000)     9,548,267   9,593,320        0%
Streams per Viewer           76.8          77        0%
Time per Viewer (min)       177.9       170.7       -4%

Source: Nielsen Online VideoCensus, Includes progressive downloads, excludes video advertising

Top Online Brands ranked by Video Streams for December 2008 (U.S.)

Brand                      Total Streams (000)  Unique Viewers (000)
YouTube                              5,561,410                84,603
Yahoo!                                 223,604                22,231
Fox Interactive Media                   23,130                16,245
Hulu                                   216,344                 6,679
Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network    203,164                 7,213
Google                                 189,964                25,484
ESPN                                   171,930                 8,228
MSN/Windows Live                       153,056                12,384
ABC.com                                117,652                 3,578
Turner Sports and Ent. Digital Network  99,909                 4,423

Source: Nielsen Online VideoCensus, Includes progressive downloads, excludes video advertising

Offerpal’s Virtual Money Service Gets $15M In Funding

Here’s some good news in a particularly troubled time for Internet startups, and it’s especially piquant for anyone who’s been following the rise (and challenges) of social gaming: Offerpal Media is announcing today that it has secured $15 million in Series B funding led by D. E. Shaw Ventures. (InterWest Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners, original investors in the Fremont-based company, also participated.)

That’s a lot of money to invest during a notably down market, but after a phone conversation with Offerpal CEO Anu Shukla, I can see why. The company was profitable four months after its October 2007 launch, and it continues to generate $30-40 million in monthly revenue, according to Shukla.

What will surprise many is how it makes that money: by linking real world marketing offers with virtual currency from hundreds of popular social games running on Facebook, MySpace, etc. Say you want some extra “FFS Coins” to spend in the Friends For Sale Facebook app. You can buy Coins for real cash — or you can complete a transaction with one of Offerpal’s advertising partners. Sign up for a Netflix account, for example, and get millions of virtual FFS Coins as a bonus. Netflix gets new customers, pays Offerpal for each successful acquisition, and Offerpal sends a cut of the revenue back to Friends For Sale developers.

See the full article at GigaOM.

NBC Direct Offers Free HD Downloads

Sure, almost all the offerings on NBC Direct can be watched at streaming site Hulu. But if you’re an HD fiend and want offline access, NBC Direct’s player might be worth checking out.

NBC Direct is definitely powered by DRM and ad-powered software, so if you’re not cool with that, well, you probably know a few other places to look (like, er, Hulu). But if you dig the idea of subscribing to, and downloading, HD-quality videos of your favorite NBC shows, it’s not a bad way of getting them guilt-free.

Installing NBC Direct means downloading a little applet, which then puts an add-on into your Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox browser, and runs a system tray applet to download and watch shows offline. When you’re connected, it seems, you’re also a peer source for other NBC Direct users…

See the full article at LifeHacker.

The Cult of the Snuggie

You’ve probably seen it: that weird family of four that look like monks all happily cooking marshmallows over a backyard fire. Or that lady curled up on a couch dressed in her sleek burgundy robe talking on a cordless phone.

It’s the Snuggie. Yes, now you too can live in the warmth and solitude of a nuclear fallout survivor. But don’t laugh too hard – over 4 million of these things have been sold already. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a fairly significant portion of your countryman have lost their jobs and face an uncertain financial future, but have yet determined that a Snuggie is a sound and fashionable purchase.

So how much of a cult status has the Snuggie achieved? In March, hundreds of Chicago residents will be participating in the first ever Snuggie Pub Crawl (see the story at the Chicago Tribune). Wow, I don’t know, but if I was going to cherish a Snuggie purchase I don’t know if I’d want it smelling like beer and puke — but that’s just me.

Yup, the Snuggie phenomonon has caught on. It makes me wonder why spray-on hair never did — that was a product we could stand behind! Hair in a can!

Audi partners with PDM to create 'Holographic Virtual Assistant'

The woman you see in the picture above isn’t an actual human — she’s a life-sized hologram. PDM, an Australian out-of-home digital media company, created the hologram to present "customers an entertaining way to gather product knowledge and information about Audi’s offering."

A load of tech and a 10 mm piece of perspex are what was needed to make the talking customer service rep. Of course, since we are still in the first inning of this technology, she’s a bit stiff and not a little uncanny to watch. But as a sign of things to come, whatever her name is, she is our introduction to another corner of the car buying future.

See more at Prime Digital Media (via Autoblog)