Americans streamed 43.5 billion videos in December 2011, up 44%since December 2010, according to comScore's 2012 US Digital Future In Focus report released today. The study also showed that 105.1 million Americans now watch videos online each day, up 43% from 73.7 million in 2010.

comScore says YouTube is largely driving this, and that average minutes per video view, average videos watched per user, and total ads streamed are way up as well. TV and film studios should take notice and consider how they can create companion content to engage this growing audience and promote their traditional offerings.

YouTube and other Google sites account for 21.9 billion of the 43.5 billion video view in December -50.4% of the total market. VEVO ranked 2nd with 801 million (1.8%), Hulu was 3rd with 777 million (1.8%), and Netflix was 4th with 431 million (1%).

Basic (free)

• High quality video
• 500MB/week upload space
• Upload 1 HD video/week
• 3 albums, 1 group, 1 channel
• No bandwidth or time limits
• Basic video player customization
• Password-protected videos

Plus ($59.95/year, $9.95/month)

• Even higher quality video
• 5GB/week upload space
• Unlimited HD uploading/embedding
• Advanced statistics
• Faster, priority uploading
• Original file storage and downloading
• Super-customizable video player
• Privacy with domain-level control
• Plus members never see ads, ever
• Exclusive discounts on products

Pro ($199/year)

• 50GB of storage, 250k plays (additional space and plays can be added)
• No bandwidth caps or time limits
• Commercial hosting option
• High Definition video (up to 1080p!)
• Mobile, tablet and connected TV compatibility
• Advanced Statistics
• Hosted Portfolio sites with SEO
• Unlimited HD uploading
• Fast, priority uploading
• Super-customizable and brandable video player
• HTML5 support with the Vimeo Universal Player
• Unlisted Video Review pages
• Third party video player support
• Optional original file storage
• Exclusive discounts on products

Vimeo is a respected, free video sharing website. It was founded by Jake Lodwick and Zach Klein in November 2004. As of December 2011, Vimeo has attracted 65 million unique visitors per month and more than 8 million registered users. 15% of Vimeo's traffic comes from mobile.

Basic users are allowed to upload up to 500MB of video content per week, or pay for an account to upload more. Vimeo attracts a wide array of video artists, and is often used to upload short movies, skits, and portfolios. The website supports full HD streaming (Plus users can choose to re-encode their 1080p upload as either 1080p or 720p) and widescreen format, as well as a wide array of video codec support, making it the ideal location to watch and share high-quality and HD personal videos. Plus users can have unlimited creation of channels, groups and albums, no ads, HD embeds, 2-pass video re-encoding that results in higher quality.

On August 1, 2011, Vimeo introduced the PRO account type for business and commercial use, which allows 50GB of storage, 250k plays, advanced analytics, third party video player support.

Pros: Vimeo has an easy-to-navigate interface, the ability to create and moderate video groups, high definition video support, up to 5GB video uploads for premium accounts, community forums, and an artistic user base.

Cons: Uploading large movie files can take over an hour to convert.

Hulu is a website and over-the-top (OTT) subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, Nickelodeon, and many other networks and studios.

It is the biggest and most popular legal movie and TV shows video streaming website. The quality of the videos available on Hulu is excellent. In addition to offering TV shows, Hulu also has a huge catalog of movies.

Hulu videos are currently offered only to users in Japan and the United States and its overseas territories.

Pros: Hulu videos can be viewed in 360p for slower Internet connections. Popular clips are available for recent and popular TV shows and movies. New series are available, with new episodes appearing up to a week after aired on cable. The website is completely free. Videos can be purchased and downloaded. A personal queue can be created for favorite content.

Cons: Videos can no longer be embedded in blogs and on websites, high definition video streaming is not available for most videos, and ads are displayed three or more times per video. Website is available to limited areas.

Metacafe gained its popularity with their page view money earning system. Metacafe (stylized as metacafe) is a website that specializes in short-form video entertainment.

The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California. But initially, it was founded in July 2003 in Tel Aviv.

Historically, though many videos on the website have been duplicates from YouTube, it now morphed into showcases curated, exclusive and original premium entertainment-related video content.

In addition to that content, there is a wide array of video tutorials on many subjects, including DIY hacks, magic, and science experiments. Metacafe is the ideal website to use making money off our video's page views.

Numerous third-party web sites, applications and browser plug-ins allow users to download Metacafe videos.

Pros: Metacafe has a popular pageview payment system, which allows users to be compensated for their videos. In addition, videos can be downloaded with a link under the video or embedded on blogs or websites. The website has many high-quality tutorials.

Cons: Metacafe increased it's video resolution, and many of the videos are now pixelated due to up-sampling. Many videos are clones from Youtube.

Break.com is a humor website founded in 1998 that features comedy videos, flash games, and pictures among other material. It is marketed towards men, and has a list of daily video picks on their homepage. Most of the videos offers us the possibility to upload or download videos for free.