Read It Later Is Popular for Video, Especially Long-Form
Read It Later may want to change its name. The online service, which debuted in 2007 and lets people bookmark articles that they want to read when they have more time, announced that it's often used for online video.
According to a company blog post, Read It Later began offering streaming video support in 2010. Its users responded: in the past year, video saving has increased by 138 percent. In fact, clips are saved from YouTube more than any other site.
As long-form streaming videos grow in popularity, Read It Later is helping the trend. Of the 1,000 most-saved videos on the service, the average length is 29 minutes 33 seconds. That suggests that people are stumbling across interesting long videos while at work or doing other tasks, when they don't have time to watch them. Read It Later lets them easily save the videos for later viewing.
Read It Later threw out a few fun stats with its blog announcement, including that 92 percent of its saved videos come from YouTube. After that, 6 percent come from Vimeo, and 2 percent from a mix of other sites, including Netflix, College Humor, Hulu, and Blip. College Humor has the highest percentage of returning viewers. Also, the most popular saved video is the music video for "Somebody that I Used to Know" by Walk off the Earth.