WebProNews

In a new study that looks at what types of online video people view, Nielsen Online found that women lean towards watching network television online and men favor user-generated content.

Women are almost twice as likely as men to watch online video on TV networks Web sites, while on user- generated sites such as YouTube, men 18 to 34 were more than twice as likely as women in the same age group to watch videos.

Michael Pond, a media analyst with Nielsen Online, attributes men's preferences of user-generated video to the shorter clips, which usually feature humor as appealing to the younger male audience.

According to Nielsen 73 percent of active Internet users viewed online video in December. This is inline with a recent survey from Burst Media that found 72 percent of Internet users had watched some form of online video. Still the challenge for marketers remains how to advertise in online video.

"For online video advertising to be truly effective, advertisers must approach it with a consumer's mindset, and recognize that what might be right for one segment could fail with another," said Jarvis Coffin, CEO of Burst Media.

Nielsen also found that online video watchers are partial to a specific network TV Web site and don't visit a wide variety of other network Web sites, compared to fans of user generated content who visit a number of different sites.