Who-lu?

*ABC has since joined and Hulu is now offering a pre-roll option to allow for a continuous viewing experience. 7-06-09

Today we’re looking at www.Hulu.com, a year old partnership by Fox / NBC to see if they can make money putting their video online. First a review because what’s interesting about Hulu is that until recently I thought it was just another stab at ad supported video. Now, to some degree it seems to be just that, but the following articles are significant because they demonstrate milestones for the inevitable 180 degree turn video content providers are forced to take due to the “anytime” nature of the web. This means that the networks may finally be “getting it” but while that may be good news, the bad news is advertisers are not getting it at all. So here you go, a review, Hulu articles and an answer to the question, “Will Hulu work?”

The good, the bad and the ugly

While I didn’t get crazy analyzing the site to death, I did watch a couple of episodes of USA’s Burn Notice and here are some thoughts. The good, Hulu is a great looking site with a fairly intuitive interface and video quality / streaming are very good. You can skip around without hassle; remember when you had to start over if you messed with the status bar? The bad, I’ve heard rumblings about content moving around and sporadic posting, which I can’t attest to myself, as I am not a frequent user. If this is true, however, it could be the end all be all for the product because without consistency there is no loyalty. The ugly, advertising aren’t “getting it” yet… or to rephrase that “someone’s not explaining it correctly to advertisers.” Yes, you have better recall if you see the same ad a bazillion times, but then people hate you. Hulu has a bad case of this syndrome, it’s not incurable, but it’s a problem nonetheless. I highly recommend last week’s TWIM (This Week in Media) podcast #100 at about the half way point there is a lot of discussion about advertising as content / entertainment.

Article 1 from Terry Heaton’s Pomo blog

Hulu revenue split defined

There’s this gem from an interesting CNET report today on how Hollywood is warming to YouTube.

Hulu may have already hurt YouTube and Google in one significant way, according to one media executive. The portal has helped to establish revenue splits between online video distributors and content owners.

“The days of the 50-50 split between content owners and Web sites are over,” said the executive. “Content owners are not going to take less than 70 percent anymore and some are getting 90 percent. In Hulu’s case, 70 percent goes to the content owner. Hulu takes 20 and the Web sites who have distribution deals get 10 percent.”

These aren’t close to what Google was willing to accept in the past, but the search giant now appears more willing to compromise, said two studio executives.

I think this is part of a bigger trend that we’ll see developing in the next 24 months, as the revenue pendulum swings in favor of publishers. ESPN started the ball rolling by declining to take ads from the ad networks anymore, choosing to do its own ad serving. In so doing, it announced to the world that it and it alone would determine the value of its content.

Article 2 from the Hulu blog:

Introducing Hulu Widgets

July 30th, 2008

Keeping on top of Hulu’s newest and most popular videos just got easier with the release of Hulu’s new Widget Gallery. These widgets — portable pieces of HTML code — allow you to track the videos in your queue, as well as Hulu’s top videos, from your desktop, personal blog or iGoogle page.

The Hulu Player Widget allows you to watch a variety of videos from the widget itself. Embeddable on your desktop, blog and personal home page, you can play videos from your queue or Hulu’s featured, most popular or recently added lists, or you can find other shows, movies or clips on Hulu and other sites using the search bar within the widget. You can read the rest this blog entry here.

So, will it work? Yes… ish (Richard)

If the networks continue to innovate. The Hulu Widget Gallery is a great at this and if it the creativity continues Hulu will be a huge success. Unfortunately, innovation takes time to payoff and networks are not known for patients… especially nowadays. Worst case scenario, if Hulu is around long enough to survive the melding of desktop and entertainment center, it could be the 1^st brand viewers recognize as web content worth watching in the living room. Now that being said, I don’t think the general public will use a keyboard and mouse in their living room even though there’s a new HP docking system for laptops that could circumvent Apple TV and make “computer as stereo receiver” viewing a reality for early adopters… click here to view the Cynopsis Digital article on the video out laptop dock. Also mentioned in this Cynopsis: Hulu’s new HD gallery. Now, all that being said I have to interject that I only believe Hulu has a chance in h*ll because it’s already hosting extremely popular content that is a proven draw and paid for. While networks may be able to use this platform to make a buck, this is not the platform for new content, podcasts, etc.

Want even more?? This link will take you to an article on TheWebTVWire.com discussing the first study on Hulu entitled “How Is Hulu Faring? | New Study Shows Low Take Up, But High Satisfaction Rating “ and by the way, there’s a statement that most people don’t even know about the site which is just ridiculous considering there’s been virtually no promotion whatsoever… putting content on the web is not a substitute for advertising.

-Richard

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