Video sites' traffic way up

Nearly half of US Internet users have been to sites like YouTube, and use of video-sharing sites has grown 45% just in the past year, according to a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. What's more, the BBC cites new Nielsen figures showing that some video-sharing sites' traffic has doubled since the US writers' strike started at the end of October. "In September and October, Crackle[.com] enjoyed an audience of 1.2 million users, which doubled to 2.4 million," the BBC reports, and "YouTube's audience was up 18% in the two months after the strike started." Not surprisingly, it's youth who are driving the upturn, with 70% of people under 30 using video-sharing sites, Pew found, with more and more creating as much as viewing. "Some 22% of Americans now shoot their own videos, with 14% of them posting at least some of that video online," the BBC adds. Here's Internet.com's coverage, and here's a Los Angeles Times editorial citing other studies with similar findings.