What's The Word On Hulu?

When Hulu first went online in beta I had applied to be a beta tester only to find out the service wasn't available in Canada. When a backdoor was found that allowed access into the platform without beta tester verification, I thought I'd be a badass and give it a try, only to find a message telling me Hulu wasn't available from my location. Definite drawback to the service. So my only option has been to look around online for reviews from those living in the US and draw my conclusions from there.

Some of the upsides so far deemed by testers is the platform's ease of use and its effective ad structure which tailors ads to the length of the content. For example, 15 second ad spots for shorter clips and 30 second ad spots for entire episodes. A $100 million investment from Providence Equity Partners plus access to monies from its partners Fox, NBC, Sony Pictures Television, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer means it has the funds to take the appropriate measures to make the platform succeed. Also notable is the fact that Hulu's success, if it happens, could cripple Apple's attempt at profitable distribution of Hollywood movies over iTunes. Music to all the Apple haters ears out there. Can you say iBrick anyone!

Hulu Greeted Me With This

Some of the downsides include frequent 404 errors and gateway timeouts as the platform adjusts to steadily increasing traffic and content, the fact that it can't be downloaded or used outside of the US, lack of community features, and the inability to embed newly released videos outside of Hulu. It also could be argued that by pulling NBC content from YouTube and iTunes, the network has drastically decreased the amount of people viewing their content meaning less ad revenues and most likely less profits.

From the perspective gained from reading others reviews of Hulu, it's hard for me to make a decisive judgement, but I can give some thoughts. The fact that Hulu does not embrace user-generated content seems to be point that critics like to pinpoint, but the fact that it uses only professionally-created content makes it an exclusive platform that can can make YouTube look as amateur as it is. This could potentially take YouTube right off its list of competitors. Not enabling viewing outside of the US has dramatically reduced the distribution potential of the platform and I hope this is only temporary as the site adjusts to increasing traffic and handling more content. Even for a beta, this is the first I've ever seen exclusion of the majority of the world population for a test. Also, a lack of community features will probably reduce the stickiness of the site. Most people don't want to watch TV on their computer screens at this point in time, they want to watch it on their traditional TV's. And not enough potential users of Hulu have adopted the hi-def technologies and set-top boxes required to stream the Hulu content from their PC's to their TV's. Community engagement would be one feature that would make alot of users stick around. I'd imagine though that this would be a feature included once the platform goes public.

It remains to see whether or not Hulu will ultimately succeed, but one thing is for sure: they have the money necessary to be around for a while.

Via Broadcasting & Cable, Silicon Valley Insider, Mashable

November 3, 2007

What's The Word On Hulu?