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“Streaming,” a term moving quickly into the mainstream vernacular, means to access audio and video content.  “Steaming” is more like the faucet or water pipe; than the water.  Streaming is the conductor and not the current. Streaming media is the delivery method allowing the recipient to watch or listen to the information as it travels along a communications network. You may have ‘streamed’ and not even known it.  When you visit a news, site click and watch the brief video, you are streaming.  Streaming music is a fact of life. After surviving the free versus fee music download issues and the introduction of iPod, music streaming has traveled well along its adoption curve.   Video’s journey has just begun.  For example – The Women Online study reports that of the estimated 97 million females online in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />US, only 66 percent of them actually watch videos online.  Teens are lacking in cash but not in interest. Popular destinations for streamers include:  YouTube, MySpace and Google Video.

Teens are much more interested in the instant entertainment gratification and have more time than their moms.   Ipsos Insight reports that teens and young adults are the most likely to stream video online.  Three in four of all U.S. teens age 12-17 and young adults age 18-24 have ever streamed digital video content online. The demographic of the typical video streamer skews younger and more likely to have higher incomes.  The financial link here is the need for a broadband connection to stream content. 

Shorter video clips with no cost are by far the most preferred type of video file accessed today. Three out of four digital video streamers have streamed (watched) short news or sports clips. Two out of three have streamed amateur or homemade video clips.  Adults are likely to view (stream) news clips of interest.