Snapstream launched a free, online analytics tool called TV Trends yesterday, which allows users to track the number of times particular words were mentioned on television. Type in up to five words, and TV Trends will scour the major broadcast and cable news networks, then graph the number of times those words were spoken. For example, here’s a chart listing comparative mentions of “Facebook” and “Twitter.”

TV Trends is an off-shoot of the company’s main product, Snapstream server, which is like a DVR on steroids, capable of recording up to 10 channels at once, either at a specific time or 24/7. The software also grabs metadata from programming as well as the closed caption feed, allowing users to search through all the recorded content to pluck out video clips of interest. Rakesh Agrawal, Snapstream’s founder and CEO, says TV Trends is used by shows like E!’s The Soup, and was used by the presidential campaigns last year as they wanted to track mentions of their candidate as well as certain issues.

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Maybe Steve Jobs was right when he dismissed Amazon’s Kindle by stating bluntly that “people don’t read.” When would they find the time? According to Nielsen’s latest Three Screen Report, the average American watched 153 hours of television a month in the first quarter of 2009, a new all-time high, besting the previous quarter’s record. Nielsen also said that almost 99 percent of all video watched in the U.S. is done on a television.

How are we watching that remaining 1 percent? Well, online video viewing was up in the first quarter, as we watched an average of three hours of web video a month (up from 2:53 in the fourth quarter). Nielsen attributes the boost in online video viewership to big events like the Presidential Inauguration, March Madness and the Super Bowl. Time spent with mobile video was down slightly, however. Of those people watching mobile video, they watched 3:37 hours of it a month (down from 3:42).

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If Hulu is making thank-you cards to send out to the people who have helped make it a hit, the company needs to make sure to write one up for folks over the age of 35. According to new stats from Nielsen, people between the ages of 35 and 49 were the fastest-growing demographic in time spent viewing the site in the past six months, and in April these fogeys represented 30 percent of Hulu’s total viewers, spending more time on the site (an average of 416 minutes per viewer) than any other demographic.

Hulu held onto its No. 2 ranking in April in the U.S., though that spot remains a distant second to goliath YouTube, which served up nearly 5.5 billion streams in April. Also impressive is that YouTube grew 35.5 percent year over year. Hulu grew 490 percent in the same time, but the site was just a couple months out of launch this time last year, so big growth is to be expected. YouTube hasn’t just held onto its No. 1 status, it’s increased its share of the total number of streams served, with 58.1 percent of streams in April 2009, up from 53.3 percent last year.

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Americans tend to glom onto certain Canadian stereotypes (Aboot! Free health care! Geddy Lee!) and beat them into the ground. Well now you can add “global leader in online video viewing” to that list of Canadian quirks. ComScore released new numbers today that showed 21 million Canadians watched 3.1 billion online videos in February, for an average of 10 hours each.

Here’s how the Great White North compared with the U.S. in February.

Of course, in terms of sheer size, the U.S. dominates, with 145 million unique viewers watching 13.1 billion videos in February. But pound for pound, that 88 percent figure represents the highest penetration among the five countries (Canada, U.S., UK, Germany, France) on which comScore Video Metrix reports. Take off, hoser! Online video in Canada is a beauty way to go! (OK, that was the last one.)

Just when you thought the Twitter-verse couldn’t get any more vapid — BAM! — MTV’s The Hills creeps in to become one of most-Tweeeted TV shows last week, according to Trendrr. Kanye West’s gay fish gave South Park a boost and Saturday Night Live finished the week strong, thanks to the actually-kinda-funny Zac Efron.

And after that Egyptian temple thing (and Ben’s awful “young-” looking wig), there was certainly plenty of fodder for Losties** to discuss.

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TV networks made $1.63 billion on web advertising last year, according to a new report on the U.S. content market by Convergence Consulting. We like any web video stats that involve the term “billions,” but let’s dig a little deeper.

Web revenue amounted to 2.4 percent of total U.S. broadcast and cable TV advertising revenue, which Convergence pegged at $66 $67.6 billion. The web figure increased from $1.27 billion in 2007, and it includes both display and video advertising on everything from local news to full-episode viewing of prime-time shows.

While the web will remain a tiny slice of the market (and this is just advertising, not subscription fees), Convergence estimates online ad revenue will nearly double by 2011, to $3.23 billion, or 4.6 percent of total TV ad revenue. The growth will be driven more by increasing usage than increasing volume of ads; Convergence thinks 4 minutes per half hour is the max people will tolerate online.

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