Internet usage monitoring firm comScore announced today that online video viewership was up 34% in November 2008 as compared with the same time period last year.  Google’s sites, which include YouTube and Google Video, account for 40.3% of all online video viewings, or somewhere around 5 billion video views (yes, that is 5,000,000,000) for the month of November 2008.

More than 146 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 87 videos per viewer in November. Google Sites attracted 98 million online video viewers, or approximately two out of every three Internet users who watched video during the month. Fox Interactive ranked second with 58.1 million viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites (40 million) and Microsoft Sites (35 million).

Meanwhile, LG and Netflix announced plans for LG to sell the first HDTV sets with Netflix streaming built in.  It’ll come at a premium, though: the Netflix-capable sets will cost $200 to $300 above market value for similar HDTVs.  I’ll stick to watching Netflix video streaming over my Xbox 360 for now, thank you very much.

Also adding to the mix, Intel announced a new set-top device that will allow consumers to view Adobe Flash content (including YouTube, Google Video, Hulu and others), as well as other content live from the Internet.  But if you own a Nintendo Wii, you’re probably already doing that today using Opera and maybe visiting VideoSift.

Radio, telephone, newspapers, and television.  Is there anything the Internet can’t do?

[comScore details c/o PRNewswire]

Filed under: Consumer Web, Entertainment, Gaming