On Pi Day, one number ‘reeks of mystery’

The sound of meditation for some people is full of deep breaths or gentle humming. For Marc Umile, it's "3.14159265358979..."

Nielsen: Online Video Usage Significantly Up YOY

Glass-half-full and glass-half-empty types, prepare to be split.  New stats from Nielsen indicate that February of 2010 was a great month for the online video industry compared to February of 2009.  Last month was a little bit rotten compared to January of 2010, however.

The chart below shows how the big-picture data categories played out.  "Unique Viewers" and "Total Streams" made the most progress year-over-year, even as "Total Streams" and "Streams per Viewer" slipped the most month-over-month.  You'll see the YOY gains are generally bigger than the MOM losses, at least.

As for how some specific brands performed between January and February, YouTube lost ground in terms of unique viewers, video streams, and time spent per viewer (-3.4 percent, -10.7, and -3.6 percent, respectively).  Hulu only slid in terms of unique viewers (-7.4 percent), while making small increases elsewhere.

At the same time, Facebook pulled in some more unique viewers (4.7 percent), and is actually coming somewhat close to matching Yahoo in this category.  Also, the CNN Digital Network and Microsoft's sites racked up big gains on the unique viewers and video streams fronts (20+ percent in both cases).

Finally, on a somewhat related note, WebProNews will be generating some video of our own as we're in Austin to cover SXSW.  Look for live video in addition to our traditional recorded coverage.

Facebook Makes Austin Expansion Official

Austin, Texas - which already plays home to tech companies Freescale Semiconductor and Dell - will soon boast a Facebook office, too.  A $1.4 million incentive package we reported on in late February has been approved, and Facebook's decided to establish a team in Austin as a result.

Grady Burnett, Director of Global Online Sales and Operations at Facebook, said in a statement, "We are delighted to formally announce that Facebook will open an online sales and operations office in Austin.  The area's world-class educational system and talented workforce give us the means to quickly establish a strong outfit."

"Strong" works out to at least 200 employees, by the way, making the new office a rather significant investment.  It'll represent a fair amount of growth, too, since Facebook's actually supposed to hire 200 Texans instead of just relocate a lot of current employees.

Burnett acknowledged, "We look forward to building our team here in Austin and enjoying all the wonderful things the city has to offer."

Finally, in other Austin-related news, don't forget that SXSW has begun.  WebProNews is on hand to bring you live video coverage along with the usual articles and recorded interviews.  This promises to be a fun (and informative) conference.

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