Hulu.com - See your Favorite Shows Online!
Posted by teal on March 12, 2008 at 08:33 AM
Today media giants Fox and NBC Universal are publicly launching their joint online video venture, Hulu.
It's been a long time coming... much awaited... and much criticized, but the online video/television show resource is scheduled to finally launch today. Dubbed "online video on demand" with available video sharing technology, Hulu has partnered with AOL, Comcast, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo! to provide video content to users. Intended to offer online access to shows like The Office, The Simpsons, Nip Tuck, My Name is Earl and much more, as well as full length movies, Hulu has big plans to add even more video content in the future.
According to the recent New York Times article Testing Over, Hulu.com to Open Its TV and Film Offerings This Week:
Hulu has so far failed to recruit two major television networks, ABC, a division of Walt Disney, and CBS. [However] Jason Kilar, Hulu's chief executive, said that he was still having regular conversations with executives at the two networks.
With high hopes of offering users a lot of everything, Hulu's video sharing and embedding technology takes things one step further by offering users the option of using an entire video or just select scenes. It's also reported that Hulu achieves higher video quality than YouTube although their streaming technology is already in question. As far as how successful Hulu is going to be with a quite astute social media and video sharing audience, there are mixed feelings out there. Some believe that Hulu is going to be a flash in the pan; others think Fox and NBC are on to something and that Hulu is already an interesting prospect for those looking for some new opportunities in video content sharing.
Click Screenshot to Enlarge
Hey, this looks cool!
Having only been able to investigate the public portion of the beta site, I am impressed. Beyond catching up on episodes of missed television shows, most of the feedback I have read about their video sharing and embedding capabilities is very positive. In fact, I plan to use the service soon (I missed an episode of Nip Tuck and hope to catch up on Julia's recent brush with death).
As far as NBC and Fox's entry into the digital and social media world, I think it's an appropriate move. With a large portion of advertising and promotion occurring online, it's an important place for companies to be. Moreover, by connecting their "version" of video sharing to the simplicity of TV, however offering some additional features (like editing, scene selection, embedding, emailing and more) Hulu is positioning itself as a reputable and useful competitor in this space.
Category
Next Generation
Posted on March 12, 2008 07:13 PM
Just love this whole 1980s retro scene at the moment. Hulu certainly helps me re-live those years. Hopefully Knight Rider 2008 will be picked up for the Fall (and they'll give the car and The Hoff more to do).
In the meantime I'm enjoying the awesome new, digitally remastered Airwolf soundtrack that they've just released called 'Airwolf Themes' which you can download off Apple iTunes Store, or from their official website where there are great teaser samples, http://www.airwolfthemes.com/ I think Hulu's Airwolf pheneomenon is just the tip of the iceberg and really just setting us all up for an Airwolf revival movie too.