comScore’s report is more singularly focused on where online video stands as of, in this report, May of 2011. That report shows the total internet audience watched an average of 951 minutes – that’s almost 16 hours – of online video that month, an astounding number. Even more than that, over 83 percent of all internet users in the U.S. watched some form of online video in whatever length.

Special note, of course, needs to be made of Adap.tv’s appearance on the list of online video sites as ranked by video ads viewed. The .tv, which we’ve covered before here, comes in at #3 on that list.

In Nielsen’s report (see the infographic below) the focus is more on video in all forms, whether online, on mobile devices or on TV. In that report the company points out that, unlike their previous studies, a trend is beginning to emerge that shows those who don’t watch much TV are streaming more video online and vice versa, that the heaviest online stream viewers are seeing their TV usage decline.

There’s such excitement around online video now (note that story also includes a .tv: Blip.tv) as new series are debuting, sites focused on discovery are launching seemingly every week and companies producing and curating everything that’s produced refine their mission. All that attention makes the space incredibly interesting to watch as new developments surface every day. It’s a great time to be involved in .tv since, as Heather Schuck said in our latest “Best of .tv” episode, .tv is the best way to instantly brand a site as being focused on video.

November, at least here in the U.S., is the big build up to the Christmas shopping sprint. There’s “Black Friday” which was born from the physical store era where everyone went out to brick and mortar stores the day after Thanksgiving. The digital era added “Cyber Monday”; which was the day we all went back to work and used our employers broadband connection by buy our presents.

According to a study just released today from ComScore, 3Q 2010 e-commerce spending was up 9% year over year to $32B.  This news has the pundits cautiously optimistic for the upcoming holiday shopping season. Last year’s Black Friday online shopping was $595MM and Cyber Monday was $887MM just in the US.

So, come back over the month and we’ll show you how adding video to retail makes cents and sense.  And if your site has a play button, it should have .tv

This October, comScore noted that 175 million US Internet users watch online video, which included more than 5.2 billion viewing sessions in just one month. By 2013, the number of online video viewers in the U.S. is estimated to hit 188 million.

There’s no doubt the exponential rise of online video viewing will have a massive impact on the Internet. To ensure that we are constantly innovating online and providing the best user experiences, VeriSign created a grant program to foster new research, advance security and stability and improve the Internet infrastructure to meet this growing demand. Since online video is increasingly popular, it is not surprising that Infrastructure Applications are one of the four categories open for grant submissions. Other categories include Domain Name System (DNS) Security, Internationalization of the Internet, and overall Internet Infrastructure.

There are four grants available this fall, each totaling $75,000. In order to qualify, applicants must be members of an academic institution, researchers, a non-profit organization or a technology high school with an international sister school. The deadline to submit applications is November 15.

Think you have an idea for how to improve the Internet? Apply now.

• The duration of the average online video rose 23% in a year to 4.3 minutes.
• The percentage of the US population that watched an video online rose 7.6 percentage points from 75.5% to 83.1%.
• The videos viewed on YouTube grew by 124% to nearly 12B (yes that’s “B” for billions) video’s a month in the US.
• In 2009, Facebook wasn’t on the top 10 list of properties by Unique Viewers. In February it’s ranked number 7 with 36MM viewers.

One thing that hasn’t changed in the year though — for all the growth in video on the web — it’s still got a very long tail. In February of 2009 the top 10 properties by videos viewed made up 57.5% of the total videos. In February 2010 that top 10 list lost 2.3 percentage points to only 55.3%. This leaves lots of room for .tv! Great things to come in the video revolution.

Justin.tv Part of Fund Raising in the UK: UK personality Tim Shaw is live on Justin.tv closed up in a box. He refers to it as Man in Box and he’s in there for 30 days unless using Google maps and clues, Brits find him before that. There’s a prize if you find him, and funds raised will go to Help for Heros (a UK organization that raises money for wounded soldiers). An interesting cross between reality tv on the web, helping veterans and .tv. Thanks Justin.tv!

Watch live video from Man In Box on Justin.tv
Cisco’s Predictions on Mobile Video: Cisco recently released one of their reports that tries to predict traffic into the future. They had a number of things about video that I thought were interesting:

• Almost 66 percent of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2014.
• Mobile video will grow at a CAGR of 131 percent between 2009 and 2014.
• Mobile video has the highest growth rate of any application category measured within the Cisco VNI Forecast at this time.
• Video will be responsible for the majority of the traffic growth between 2009 and 2014.
• Overall mobile data traffic is expected to grow to 3.6 exabytes per month by 2014, and over 2.3 of those are due to mobile video traffic.

ComScore Shows There’s Lots of Room for Video Sites: Yes, YouTube gets the majority of the traffic at 26% of time spent, but the next 24 spots only add an additional 22% according to a recent report from ComScore. That leaves over half of all time spent — 52% is in the tail. If you use videos watched as the metric, the second company on that list is already into low single digits (Hulu at 3%); and by the time you get to the 9th position on that list, you’re below single digits (CBS Interactive at .9%). So this story of video on the web is just beginning with lots of changes and growth to come. Great for .tv. Stay tuned.

Half of NetFlix’s Customers Stream to their TV: The Diffusion Group issued a press release on a report they recently did which says 1/2 – yes that’s 50% – of their large base is using the “Watch Instantly” option on their TVs. No, this isn’t the lone college student streaming to their laptop (though they do have that demographic too). This refers to someone who bothered to buy a box to make it easy, or hack a way to get the stream from the Internet onto a TV (full disclosure, I’m one of the box variety). What does this say for the over the top option for video on the web in the near future?

Google ranks first in both countries, but the 2nd through 4th, and 8th through 10th spots in France are sites not even on the US list. Facebook, Fox and Microsoft round out both lists.

To quote Delphine Gatignol, ComScore business development manager in France “The online video market in France has rapidly expanded during the past year as Internet users demonstrate their preference for the sight, sound and motion of video for consuming online content.” Seems an interest in video is global.

P.S.: If I got the gender of video wrong in my title, my apologies to the French speaking world. My high school French is a little rusty and not very current. I asked one of our lawyers who happened to be in from Switzerland for meetings this week.