Watching online videos is fast becoming the latest ‘in thing’ in the US! According to Comscore estimates, nearly seventy-seven of the country’s online population accessed at least online video, with the regular online video viewer watching nearly 273 minutes of video, during the month of November.

Out of the total of 12.7 billion online videos – which makes for a 34 percent increase from a year back - Google’s YouTube claimed the major share by providing 5.1 billion online video streams to 97 million unique viewers. A distant second place went to Fox Interactive Media with 439 million videos watched, and the third to Viacom Digital which had 325 million videos watched.

For sites like YouTube and Hulu, the news about the big jump in online video viewing is a good one, particularly so as they are trying to build an online ad market around video. In the opinion of one of the analyst firms, the market for video ads is likely to increase 45 percent to $850 million this year.

In December, an eMarketer study forecast even greater growth in online video viewing in years to come – the figures are expected to touch $1.25 billion in 2010, and, over the years, reach up to $4.6 billion in 2013!