A new report from In-Stat asserts that over the next several years user-generated content (UGC) will boost Website revenue, mainly from advertising.
The research firm estimates the volume of views and downloads at these sites will surpass 65 billion by 2010, and at the same time revenues will exceed $850 million.
The bulk of the revenues will come from advertising — including banners, embedded video ads and branded channels or pages.
Among UGC leaders, the study found that currently YouTube has the highest market share for video, but MySpace has the most visitors.
In its latest ranking of online video sites, ComScore found that in July over 106.5 million people, about three out of every five US Internet users, streamed or downloaded video during the month of July.
In total, nearly 7.2 billion videos were streamed or downloaded in the US, an average of 67 streams per streamer, which means that the typical video streamer viewed more than two streams per day.
Yahoo! ranked as the top online video-viewing site, followed closely by MySpace. Fast-rising YouTube ran third, trailed by Time Warner and Microsoft sites.
In a tracking study also conducted this summer, Nielsen//NetRatings found that UGC sites accounted for five of the top 10 fastest-growing Web brands.
For more information on related issues, read eMarketer's Mobile Spending: US Non-Voice Services report.