Need to make your case to get started with online videos at your institution?

July 25th, 2007 Karine Joly No Comments

The good folks at the Pew Internet and American Life Project have just made your life a bit easier by releasing today a new 28-page report about online videos.

The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between February 15 to March 7, 2007, among a sample of 2,200 adults, 18 and older.

This report confirms that online videos have made it to mainstream.

The majority of adult internet users in the U.S. (57%) report watching or downloading some type of online video content and 19% do so on a typical day.

What about our target audiences of prospective and current students?

  • Young adults (those ages 18-29) are among the most voracious video viewers. Three in four young adult internet users (76%) report online consumption of video.
  • Roughly one in three (31%) internet users ages 18-29 said they watched or downloaded some type of video on a typical day during the period of this survey.
  • For young adults, comedy is a bigger draw than news videos, with 56% watching humorous videos, compared with 43% of internet users ages 18-29 who say they watch news videos.
  • Young adults are the most “contagious carriers” in the viral spread of online video. Two in three (67%) video viewers ages 18-29 send others links to videos they find online.

No surprises here, but it’s always nice to backup what you know with a nice report by a third-party — especially, if you’ve requested a budget for new hardware or software.

The report is available as a PDF file and you can download it for free. So, go get it!

And, if you need help to get started, check out the upcoming 3-webinar series about online videos scheduled in September presented by 3 higher ed professionals who have implemented successful programs: www.higheredexperts.com/onlinevideos

Got a question or comment?