[comScore] — According to the latest stats by comScore, U.S. Internet users watched 13.5 billion online videos in October 2008, which was a 45 percent year-over-year increase.

The average duration of videos watched was also up, 3 minutes per video in comparison with September’s stats of the average duration of 2.7 minutes.

YouTube, which serves 68% of all viewers (99.5 million), continues to dominate the field while Hulu is the rising star jumping up to 6^th position on the board with nearly 24 million viewers. Hulu also gains the best watching duration with an average of 11.6 minutes well above any other services.

There are other interesting findings from the stats:

• 77 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• The average online video viewer watched 274 minutes of video.
• More than 80 percent of the 18-34 year olds watched online video, higher than any other age segment. The average 18-34 year old online video viewer watched 4.8 hours of video during the month, also ranking above all other age segments.
• 99.5 million viewers watched 5.3 billion videos on YouTube.com (53.2 videos per viewer).
• 51.2 million viewers watched 520 million videos on MySpace.com (8.0 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 3.0 minutes.

Video appears not the future of Internet but it is the internet now.