I received the same Hulu email as Mari earlier this week. And it didn’t move me. I don’t want to stream full length feature films on my laptop. Hulu‘s real strength has been in shorter form television entertainment. (Given their NBC and FOX DNA, this comes as no surprise.)
During Hulu’s beta I was pretty tolerant of their “random episode” policy, figuring it’d take awhile to encode the content library. However, after many months I still see no rhyme nor reason to what shows are available and when.
For example there’s not much on TV these days, so when I heard about USA’s Pysch I dropped by Hulu to check it out. As you can see above (click to enlarge) – only a few episodes are offered, they’re not in any sensible (sequential) order, and at least one will expire (before I’d get to it). As someone who’s never seen Psych, at the very least Hulu needs to provide the first episode of each season so I can see what it’s all about without joining mid-stream. Ideally, they’d present the entire season – but even if they offered a few episodes, perhaps they’d hook me and I’d buy the DVD or (gasp) even watch live.
The bottom line here is that big media still doesn’t (seem to) get it. I’m willing to sit through the commercials, generating additional new revenue for these guys. Online, they need to focus less on (the false premise of) cannibalizing DVD sales or television viewing and focus more and monetizing what people are acquiring for free… or ultimately ignoring. Too hard to find Psych? Fine, I’ll skip it. They’re leaving money on the table.
