Oct 29, 2007
Hulu: I’m in and I’m impressed
To some small surprise, someone somewhere at Hulu hooked me up with a beta invite to the service. I hadn’t previously put my name in the beta bucket, but I’m glad I got a chance to check this out because Hulu, despite it’s awful name (which, aside, reminds me of Hufu, human flesh substitute for vegan cannibals), the service leaves me surprisingly hopeful for TV on the web. Most previous efforts I’ve seen relied heavily (or entirely) on Flash, been difficult to navigate, and produced video that looks like crap. Hulu definitely uses Flash (but fairly sparingly, thankfully), but the interface is sparse and extremely well laid out, and ads only appear during the designated ad spots in the stream (marked by dots in the timeline). Some bits:
- It needs more content. Yeah, I know, it just launched, but this thing needs way more content, and it needs less recent content. It’s not just that there aren’t a lot of shows (I’m sure more are coming), but most of these shows are limited to only the last few episodes that aired. That’s fine, but I still watch The Office on HDTV and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon, the experience is too good. What I want is to catch up on episodes from previous seasons that I missed, not just clips from previous seasons and the last few full eps from this season.
- It’s embeddable. Seriously, and you can even embed a custom clip from the show, if you only want to see the punchline. Check it out after the break. (Note: my site’s column width is only 480px wide, and the Hulu player apparently won’t let me shrink it down below it’s surprisingly-high-res-for-web resolutino of 520 x 295. It’s a feature, it’s a bug.)
- Great user experience and interface for a site in this market. You can dim the rest of the site to focus in on the video being played; going to full-screen is instant and looks pretty good even up close (TechCrunch reports that it’s streamed at 480Kbps or 700Kbps); videos load almost instantly and there’s little or no lag.
- Kara doesn’t like that it doesn’t have user-generated content. Wait, huh? Who actually thought NBC Universal and Fox were trying to overtake YouTube on the Chocolate Rain game? The whole concept here was so they could make sure premium content (like Samberg’s Digital Shorts, for example) is both a) online and b) making THEM money, not other video sites.
- Non-downloadable. Yeah, that’s kind of lame, but better they offer it as web streaming only than piss off the early audience with Windows-only DRMed junk (see: BBC). Not sure when they’ll get this one together though.
- You still have to sit at your computer. The interface is probably usable at ten feet, but not that many people have the hookup on HTPCs. Hulu would be a true streaming TV game-changer if it got Apple TV and Windows Media Center plugins.
Co-founder of 
I’m guessing that Windows Media Center integration isn’t too far off. Microsoft’s recently launched “Internet TV” feature for MCE is pretty slick, but severely lacking in content. The only actual TV show available with full length streaming episodes is Arrested Development.
But all of Microsoft’s Internet TV content comes from MSN Video. And as of today, Hulu content is available via MSN Video. So I’m guessing (hoping) it’s only a matter of time before we start to see BattleStar Galactica and Air Wolf show up in Windows Vista Media Center.
‘nother bullet point:
• Let non-yanks in!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coneee/1799571813/
I had been ignoring all this hulabahulu, but I’ve got my mac mini plugged into my projector and this seems like a great fit since I don’t have cable.
Scratch that. MSN PR just got back to me. Hulu content will not be available via Microsoft’s new “Internet TV” feature.
bottom line is content, content, content.
they knew that whoever has the best content wins and quite honestly, 97% of YouTube videos are garbage.
Hulu or Hoola or whatever it’s called, or whatever it looks like, doesn’t matter. They have the content to keep eyeballs entertained.
I really like what ABC is doing on their site. Sure they have ads, but they let you know when they’re coming up and they’re super short. I will sit through them because I like the shows.
I was chuckling at the criticisms about it not including user-generated content as well. I think that’s the whole point.
I hope we eventually see some sort of support for this in Media Center, but I’m sure there’s a lot of legal dancing that has to go on before something like that would happen. It would seem an ideal match for both parties though.
Free, ad-supported, downloadable content is what I’m eagerly waiting for. That’s going to be the next big jump in online video content and will put sites like this more directly in competition with paid platforms like Itunes.
Let’s Get Real, Hulu No Replacement for YouTube, iTunes
Despite a couple of headlines that briefly made me ponder if Universal bought the opinions of some A-Listers, Hulu, News Corp./NBC Universal’s online video website has received decidedly ho-hum reviews. The Hulu website will be the exclusive home to v…
“Non-downloadable” and “You still have to sit at your computer” is why Hulu will not succeed. It’s too inconvenient. As such, Hulu will actually encourage piracy. It doesn’t matter if content is embeddable or the interface is good, the point is it’s the wrong strategy from the get go.
Hulu will not be a success for me. As an expatriate I cannot watch anything, because they are blocking non-USA viewers. I will still buy iTunes, which you can do if you have a physical US address on your Credit Cards and use the US store. iTunes model buy and take with you (offline) is still better hands down. Dependance on the Internet can be a problem – Internet can be very flakey at times. If you travel international, Hulu is a no-go.
I am very curious to see how hulu works and how it does.
How does the invite system work?
can you invite people?
Nope, no invite system (yet).