In the past few years, we've seen the number of businesses using video on their web sites increase dramatically. For my own video production business, as well as for this web site, I try (a little obsessively) to keep up with who's using video and how they are doing it. This knowledge helps me come up with creative solutions for my customers, and creative story ideas for the readers of this web site.

I recently discovered a video service, VideoBloom, that is also trying to keep tabs on which businesses are using web video. Since February, the VideoBloom VIEW Index has released two fascinating (for those of us interested in this topic, anyway) surveys about web video usage by Dow Jones and NASDAQ companies.

Among the 30 Dow Jones companies, 90 percent use web video. Their videos include everything from virtual tours and video tutorials to movie trailers and user-generated community videos. Only 48 percent of the 100 NASDAQ companies, on the other hand, are using web video.

The VIEW Index looks at many aspects of a company's web video strategy--how is video incorporated into the overall web site, what video formats are used, and how are viewers able to interact with the videos. The overall finding from the Video Bloom VIEW Index, which shouldn't be too surprising, is that the bigger the company, the more likely it is to have a sophisticated web video platform.

Smaller companies, though, should still consider web video. With so many digital solutions available, it's not prohibitively expensive, and it can help you compete with the larger guys!

• Web Video Ideas for Small Businesses