Facebook, Google Get Online Videos Out

If you want your online video to get an audience, a reference from Google or Facebook is the way to do it.

That's the finding from a recent study from online video analytics and advertising platform Tubemogul and on-demand software platform Brightcove. Tubemogul says it processes billions of video streams every month from the Internet's top publishers and advertisers. Brightcove's platform is used by media companies to publish and distribute.

Google towers over the market, with 50 percent of videos that people watch were referred to the viewer by the search giant. Facebook came in next at 9.6 percent. This marks the first time that Facebook has surpassed Yahoo!, a search engine and content portal, for the number of referred videos.

The research also found that newspapers uploaded significantly more videos this year than ever before; as the total was up 51 percent and actually surpassed broadcasters for total minutes streamed. This is an interesting development, and suggests that newspapers are rapidly adopting and producing video content for what was once a print business, the report states.

Broadcasters had more videos streamed than newspapers; 433 million online video streams compared to 406 million. However, as noted, newspapers had longer video length, 313 million minutes compared to 290 million for broadcasters. The report said newspapers saw a spike in June and July for uploaded videos; likely due to the ongoing World Cup.

Another interesting discovery from the research was that Twitter became a major source for media sites to refer videos. The research found that brands experienced a much higher rate of engagement through Twitter; 1:47 minutes, than any other source.