English: A Netflix envelope picture taken by BlueMint. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Netflix And YouTube Account For 50% Of All Video Streaming

Netflix and YouTube have been revealed to be responsible for about half of all video streaming, solidifying the place of the video sharing site and online streaming service as the major movers of new media. While both platforms have certainly benefited from the explosion of mobile devices and game consoles over the last few years, it seems that the early attitudes of both companies towards online streaming have made the most difference. Both companies embraced the web early on, allowing Netflix and YouTube to profit today.

The fact that YouTube and Netflix account for around half of all video streaming should not be terribly surprising, given the way that the two businesses have positioned themselves in the market. When it comes to basic online streaming, there is no service more widely known that YouTube - given the site's connections to Google and the name's prominence in the social lexicon, there are simply no worthwhile contenders to the throne. Likewise, Netflix's early adoption of streaming as a medium and careful outmaneuvering of competitors has left it in a spot that is unlikely to be challenged by any upstart.

With the two giants in possession of half of the market, it is will be interesting to see where streaming will go next. Services like HBO's HBOGo and Amazons' Amazon Instant Video will have to step up their game if they want to compete - and in today's market, it will be harder than ever. With two entrenched kings of streaming, it seems like the internet has already decided on its content delivery mechanisms of choice.

Netflix Winning the Internet, or Streaming Video Anyway