Online video is soaring. 71% of online Americans now use video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, up from 66% a year earlier, according to a new Pew Internet survey. The use of video-sharing sites on any given day also jumped 5% from 23% in May 2010 to 28% in May 2011.

Rural internet users are now just as likely as users in urban and suburban areas to have used these sites, and online African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely than internet-using whites to visit video-sharing sites.

“The rise of broadband and better mobile networks and devices has meant that video has become an increasingly popular part of users’ online experiences,” said Kathleen Moore, author of the report. “People use these sites for every imaginable reason – to laugh and learn, to watch the best and worst of popular culture and to check out news. And video-sharing sites are very social spaces as people vote on, comment on, and share these videos with others.”
About the Survey

The findings come from national survey findings from a poll conducted on landline and cell phones, in English and Spanish, between April 26 and May 22, 2011 among 2,277 adults (age 18 and older). The margin of error among the internet users is +/- 3.7 percentage points.