GOOGLE VIDEO SITES GET 21 BILLION VIEWS PER MONTH

The latest report from comScore makes for eye popping reading -- Google's video sites, of which YouTube is the most important, received 20,933,113,000 views in October. To put that into some context, that's roughly three videos watched by every person alive on the planet. According to the statistics, YouTubers spent an average of seven hours watching the month's hottest videos.

Surprisingly, Facebook came second, but viewers spent an measly average of 18 minutes watching last night's karaoke. In other news, Hulu came top for online advertising and Vevo was the most watched partner site, you guys obviously love your Lady Gaga.

QR CODES SCANNED BY 6.2 PERCENT OF SMARTPHONE USERS

QR codes may be turning up in more places than ever these days, but are people actually using them? According to market research firm Comscore, at least some of them are -- 14 million in June in the US alone, to be specific, or about 6.2 percent of all smartphone users. As for who makes up that slice of the smartphone market, Comscore says that just over 60 percent are male, 53 percent are between the ages of 18 and 34, and 36 percent have a household income of $100k or more. Folks are also apparently more likely to scan QR codes at home than at a retail store, and magazines and newspapers edge out websites or product packaging when it comes to the top source of the QR code being scanned. So, not exactly an explosion in use, but still fairly impressive for a weird-looking barcode that was rarely seen outside of Japan until a few years ago.

APPLE'S iPAD ACCOUNTS FOR 97% OF US TABLET TRAFFIC ONLINE

It's no secret that the iPad commands a serious lead in the battle for tablet mindshare, but comScore's new Device Essentials traffic-tracking service shows just how much that translates into market dominance. According to the web monitoring company, the iPad and its successor account for 89 percent of tablet internet use globally, and 97 percent here in the US. Of course, the slate segment is still young and accounts for only a tiny percentage of total traffic. And, it's worth noting, the iPad has a significant advantage in being the first to hit shelves.

ANDROID 33% OF US MARKET; iPHONE UP

Android is continuing its rise upwards but has yet to take any share away from the iPhone, comScore found on Friday. February, the first month of the Verizon iPhone's availability, saw Android climb up to exactly 33 percent of the US smartphone field, a seven point climb from November. Apple's platform still managed to climb very slightly to 25.2 percent.

All of Google's advances came at the expense of every other platform, the research group said. RIM was hurt the most and saw its share drop below 30 percent for the first time, falling to 28.9 percent. Windows Phone 7 did little to stop Microsoft's decline and saw its combined efforts drop to 7.7 percent. HP, with the Pre3 and Veer still months off, dropped to 2.8 percent.

FACEBOOK OVERTAKES YAHOO TO BECOME #3 WEBSITE

Yahoo’s downward spiral continues. As an early Christmas present to some of its employees, the company laid off 650-700 employees in an effort to rightsize the company in the wake of disappointing financial results. Most of the layoffs were targeted at the company’s product division as a part of a strategy to shut down websites which are not profitable for Yahoo!

Many people would assume that Yahoo’s chief rival would be Google. Though Google is indeed a target that Yahoo! needs to keep its eyes on, it seems that the company’s most immediate threat is coming from Facebook as backed up by comments from Yahoo’s CEO and the latest numbers from comScore. comScore’s November results show that Facebook has now taken the title as the world’s third largest website from Yahoo! Facebook has been slowly creeping up into the number three spot as demonstrated by previously published results for October.

For November, Facebook posted 648 million unique visitors compared to Yahoo’s 630 million. Remaining in the top two spots are #2 Microsoft with 869 million unique visitors and #1 Google with with 970 million. That’s not the only lump Facebook would give Yahoo! in November, though.

During the same month, Facebook also supplanted Yahoo! to become the second largest video website in the U.S., but don’t expect a fight from Yahoo! anytime soon to take back its video website title. The company has already decided to kill its Yahoo! Video website and point users to its Flickr property.

To be fair though, it’s not all doom and gloom for Yahoo! The company is still #1 in total U.S. monthly visitors with 181 million compared to Facebook which sits in the #4 spot with 152 million. [Geek]

BING PASSES YAHOO

Microsoft's Bing search engine has surpassed Yahoo, but is still a long way behind market leader Google, according to newly released data by Nielsen.  In August, Bing grew from 13.6% to 13.9% of the US market, while Yahoo shrunk from 14.1% to 13.1%.  Google went from 64.2% to 65% during the same time.

This is good news for Bing, however it is less rosy than it seems.  In August Yahoo and Bing jointly announced that Yahoo search was now powered by Bing, effectively putting Bing in second place.

Nielsen states it only counts searches that users type in a search box and not ones that are automatically generated by search engines based on the users browsing habits.  It should be noted that comScore, Experian Hitwise and StatCounter still show Yahoo in second place followed very closely by Bing in third. [Ars Technica]