ccording to new data from Nielsen//NetRatings, YouTube (a popular site that allows users to upload, view and share video clips) saw traffic surge 75 percent in the week of July 9, when it posted World Cup footage showing French captain Zinedine Zidane head-butt Italian defender Marco Materazzi. For that week, the site drew 12.8 million unique visitors, compared to 7.3 million the week before. The New York Times' website was among the online publications that linked to the YouTube footage.

Nielsen//NetRatings also reported that YouTube's traffic quadrupled in the first six months of 2006. According to the report, last month, the video site drew 19.6 million unique visitors, up from 4.9 million in January. The number of web pages viewed surged 515 percent, to approximately 724 million last month, significantly up from around 118 million in January. Interestingly, the time spent per person increased 64 percent, to around 28 minutes, from approximately 17 minutes. ... more