New research from mobile web optimization firm Bytemobile shows that more and more of us are making demands of our devices, our mobile carriers, and video-hosting sites such as YouTube by consuming large amounts of video content on our phones. Our video consumption tends to peak around 10 p.m., at which point bandwidth takes a nosedive and stalling cripples our viewing experience.
In other words, we get the worst possible experience exactly when we want most to have a good experience.
This viewing experience is even worse when videos aren't optimized for mobile devices. In these cases, for a 60-second video, the average viewer on a 3G network connection would have to deal with around 10 seconds of stalling.
Video optimization, the report said, can reduce stalling to almost zero seconds per minute of video.
End users have been dealing with stalling by choosing to view lower-quality videos in exchange for faster load times. Around 95% of mobile video viewers watch at resolutions between 176x144 and 640x480. Less than half a percent of mobile video viewers are watching what could be considered high-quality videos.
According to these findings, Flash is by far the most popular mobile video format, accounting for a full 90% of total video traffic. That's one strike against Apple's no-Flash marching orders. Another is the stats on adult content; four of the top 10 video sites accessed from mobile phones contain only adult content. So much for "freedom from porn."
However, even when you include adult content sites, YouTube is the most popular video content site, accounting for 36% of mobile views. A distant second is Google Video, which grabs just 6% of mobile video views.
If you watch videos on your phone, do these finding match up with your viewing experiences?