Review of Hulu.com

To be honest I was/am holding a grudge against NBC for removing their content from iTunes. But I have an open mind, and I don't mind watching ads if I am getting content for free. Furthermore, having the ability to watch content whenever I feel like it is a big perk.

Hulu gives you the ability to watch a large selection of Fox and NBC content. This means Battle Star Galactica, Hells Kitchen, The Office, American Dad and The Simpsons. The also have a selection of old movies. The best part is (at least with Battle Star) the episodes appear to get posted as the episode airs, so you don't have to wait.



As will all things there has to be a down side, and Hulu is far from perfect. As I watch their content there is a big difference in user experience between animated shows and live action. I am guessing this has to do with the amount of data required for a good picture. Even so, watching a live action show can be agonizing. It seems that on the good days I can only watch about three min before I have to stop and let Hulu re-buffer. I wish the Hulu designers would just give it time to buffer in the first place so I don't have to keep hitting pause. Hulu, if your listening, create an application that measures the users bandwidth and adjusts the buffer time and quality accordingly. I would rather take a hit in quality than suffer though choppy dialogged.




To be fair, I did attempt to watch Battle Star on Scifi's website and encountered the same problem.



From a marketing point of view, Hulu is really cool. It appears they can place any advertisement in the program breaks (see the dots along the progress bar). This might be the first wave of the new mass media. And its CPM. Just think if you could place you video ads in Hells Kitchen or The Office, using your Ad Words account...

NBC: Choosing Hulu over iTunes does not make sense. (Open Letter)

Dear NBC,

As a fan of Battle Star Galactica and occasional watcher of The Office I feel compelled to tell you how happy I am to have an outlet to get my fix. Choosing to distribute your content via Hulu.com makes a lot of sense. This way you can control your media while selling advertisements.

For a while I am afraid that you were going to make the same mistake that the music industry did. You see, fewer and fewer people are watching TV anymore. We prefer to get our media via the internet. Then we want to consume it at our own pace. The music industry for the longest time did not understand this, so the market created supply (Napster). The same thing is happening to tv. Recently we all read the article stating that over 50% of bit torrents were TV shows. If that is not a telling piece of consumer behavior, I don't know what is. (See chart)

Still the thing that I can't figure out is why not sell on iTunes. Take my brother for example, he is a college student with a MacBook. He is not in the minority, we all also read the stories about Apple over taking Dell in the education sector. My brother, purchased every episode of Battle Star Galactica on iTunes. This is the thing, we are talking about digital media where all the costs and revenues are variable. If I want to purchase BSG on iTunes, why not let me. If you don't sell the episodes on iTunes, I will watch it on Hulu.com. Furthermore, I think that when we discuss you various distribution channels (Amazon [saving this for a different day], iTunes, Hulu, BitTorrent) we are actually talking about different markets. Amazon users are PC users that don't mind paying and want higher quality, iTunes users are mostly Apple users or iPod users and also don't mind paying, Hulu users don't want to pay but don't mind the ads, BitTorrent users are just angry. You see I could lay out a simple equation that would tell you what to do. It would look like: Channel with most $$$$ = Chosen Channel. However, your distribution channels are not mutually exclusive, hence you should put your media anywhere where customers will consume it.

And if you're after a really radical idea, why not release your episodes (with ads) on BitTorrent. Thats called making your enemies into friends.

Your Former Paying Customers,
Anzel Online

BTW:

TorrentFreak