The Financial Times reports that Hulu.com, the upstart video streaming and sharing site founded by NBC and backed by News Corp, is projected to equal or possibly even surpass YouTube in U.S. advertising revenue next year. This doesn’t remotely surprise me despite the fact that Google has been trying to monetize since acquiring YouTube two years ago. Why? Well, ask any young person, especially college students, how they’re getting their television. It seems most of them get at least some content online, and many are using Hulu.com as a source. Do kids (and others) still get TV from torrents? Some do, but it’s hard to beat Hulu for quickly and easily catching up on a show. YouTube is better known for user-generated junk (UGJ). Yes there’s some good stuff in there, but the catalog is so polluted that it’s nearly impossible to find the good stuff. And other than a few CBS shows, you’ll not find much “broadcast” television to catch up on.
Also, from the start, Hulu has embedded commercials within the video – akin to traditional television. Long term, that’s what’ll make the money and YouTube can’t do that hosting mostly super short clips.
It’s not only interesting that Hulu is advancing on YouTube, but it’s also advancing on VOD. Comcast VOD — the largest provider in the country — serves an average of 300 million views a month. Hulu will reach 200 million in December and will likely hit the 300 million mark by April or May next year. In other words, in just 1 year of operation, Hulu will be as important a fixture in the landscape as VOD, after 7 years of workin’ it.
If TiVo could snag Hulu capability then, with the upcoming Netflix stuff, I could cancel cable and go completely OTA for network TV.
I’ve been moving more and more to Hulu for my content over the past few months, and it’s great. I don’t have to wait for anything to download, nor do I have to worry about the MPAA banging on my door later.
Oh, to think what would have happened if the MPAA had thought of something like Hulu a while back, rather than joining the RIAA in suing the pants out of customers.
One thing I also recently discovered is the movies section of Hulu. There’s actually a decent collection there, and the streaming is high-quality, too, with very few buffers or anything.
For the ease of use, I certainly don’t mind sitting through a few commercials.
When I contacted Hulu reps about the possibility of “agreements” with 3rd party hardware vendors and/or software vendors, they said that this was something they were not interested in at this time due to licensing arrangements.
The networks are really torn between getting their shows viewed however the viewers want them to be viewed (online vod etc) and the pull from the cable operators not wanting them to do that.
In the end, Hulu really needs to get as many hardware agreements as possible, much like Netflix is doing with their Netflix Watch-Now service.
Here’s me from the lunatic fringe…Hulu will never ever surpass YouTube for me, for a single reason: Interactivity.
YouTube’s only worthwhile function is that I can add and share MY videos. That isn’t even in Hulu’s charter.
Youtube = a vibrant, social networking tool for me to have and run my own TV station with for free.
Hulu = Some good content, but as one-way, top-down, “do what I say” as normal dinosaur media.
Saying Hulu is better than YouTube is the same as saying news papers ( and PC magazine ) are the way of the future.
***End transmission***
While Hulu’s full-length content may be better than YouTube’s, it’s not even hit-and-miss, it’s more of a miss. Like I mentioned in moving away from TV post’s comments, it’s a pain to use Hulu since there is no rhyme or reason for availability of episodes. Even more than HD content, I wish they’d come up with rules for which episodes are available that are easy to follow, e.g. “last X episodes”, “all episodes in last X days”, or something else.
Also, I don’t find Hulu’s servers to be particularly good. I’m on a reasonably good downlink but last time I checked it out (when new PS3 firmware came out), there was too much buffering for my liking.
I recently starting using http://ovpulse.com which is a super aggregator allowing me to chat ‘over’ any video I’m watching, I can get a quick scan of popular free movies, tv shows, cartoons and news and they update the site ON the hour every hour so for me it’s a time saver if you kow what I mean? don’t have to visit 28 different sites to get my fix :)
Hulu already has some 3rd party deals as far as I know. There’s at least one web based content delivery in beta testing now that is using Hulu as one of their video providers. Having used it yesterday to catch up on an Office episode I had missed I must say it’s cool.
rob,
What 3rd party deals are out there? They basically told me they weren’t able to do any at this point – then again they probably wouldn’t have told me…
They have a few online, web-only 3rd party deals, like Sling.com and Fancast, basically allowing the (re)syndication of content. But I’m not yet aware of any hardware deals… Piping Hulu to the television probably changes the content licensing terms.
I was referring to what Dave mentioned, being we are not allowed to talk about Sling.com in public I didn’t want to say their name….but I thought I had read somewhere that in the future they hoped to have Sling.com work directly with Slingcatcher…..
Rob, I’ve personally been cleared to discuss Sling.com – though ‘m mostly waiting for launch. Regarding the Catcher, some content from Sling.com will ultimately be accessible on that hardware as well. But I’m pretty sure it’s a subset of partners/content and I’m not sure which at this point. Again, it comes down to licensing.
Hmm… I’m disappointed that only some Sling.com content will make it over to SlingCatcher. Without direct interface to Sling.com, viewing web video on SC seems like waaaaaaaaaay too much work to be worth it.
I figured you were clear to talk Dave, I just didn’t want to get my hand slapped (enjoying it too much). That’d be a bummer more content not being on it. As for Catcher being work….if you’re using it to watch a remote Slingbox it’s less work, I love you can use a remote and watch TV like you normally would.
Hulu and college students will not last. College networks hate it – it uses entirely too much bandwidth at prolonged periods. In this time of cost cutting at higher education institutions, boards will not approve extra expenditures for more bandwidth so students can watch TV. I predict that in 3-5 months Hulu will be blocked or shaped out from a lot of university networks.