While traders are busy salivating, crying or popping champagne over Google's (GOOG) 90 plus point move today on the heels of strong first quarter results, the Minyanville editorial staff was busy listening to the earnings conference call.

Hidden amongst the positive comments about future growth was a truly amazing statistic. Larry Page, Co-Founder and head of Google's Products division said "We are up to about 10 hours of video content every minute on YouTube." 10 hours … per minute? Doing the quick math, that's:

  • 600 hours per hour
  • 14,400 hours per day
  • 432,000 hours per month
  • 5,184,000 hours per year

That's an inordinate amount of video! It would take 500 television channels airing original content 24-hours a day, 365 days a year to equal YouTube's output.

Google says its 68 million unique visitors spend an average of 54 minutes on the site every month. That means Americans spend 748 million hours watching YouTube videos each year. By comparison, the Texas Transportation Institute reports traffic annually wastes 4.2 billion hours and costs our economy $78 billion.

Far be it for us to judge what other people do with their time, but one thing's for certain: if Google ever figures out how to effectively monetize YouTube's dedicated eyeballs, Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) better watch out.