Hulu: People are actually watching us

Filed under: Internet, Video, Web services, web 2.0

Hulu: People are actually watching us

by Brad Linder May 20th 2008

Much to everyone's amazement, Hulu doesn't suck. Seriously. When Fox and NBC first announced plans to get into the online video streaming business, a lot of commenters spent a lot of time talking about how silly it would be to take on YouTube. And then Hulu started showing full length movies and TV shows with minimal advertisements. The video quality is fairly good, and the content library includes things you might actually want to watch. Now, just two months after publicly launching, Hulu reports that:

The site has served up more than 63 million video streams
The average Hulu user watches 2 hours of Hulu video each month
Hulu is now the top network video site

Hulu has also launched a distribution deal with TV.com today, and plans to start streaming video through TVGuide.com, Break.com, Zap2it, BuddyTV, Flixter, and MyYearbook in the next few weeks.

Now for the bad news. Hulu is still completely unavailable to anyone outside of the US.

Tags: hulu, movies, online-video, tv, video

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Todd said 5:21PM on 5-20-2008

Subtract The Office and 30 Rock and you have a big empty site with no users, also known as "eggs in one basket". Wanna another nasty ( possibly illegal ) way to drive people to hulu? DRM the over the air broadcast:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/20/nbc-admits-inadvertent-broadcast-flag-use-still-doesnt-expla/

I wouldn't paint NBC as the victor just yet, they bailed on Apple iTunes wanting to get more money for The Office, and hulu is the result of being told "no". The Office ends, so does hulu.

Ethan said 7:14PM on 5-20-2008

We should also be allowed to pay for it and own it for a reasonable price though.

Slappy said 10:58PM on 5-20-2008

Hulu was interesting, I was watching Battlestar, Family Guy, Simpsons and American Dad since I don't have cable...however, it is going down hill. Regardless of who is responsible, Hulu or the networks, but, now Battlestar is on an eight day delay...Family Guy has only three episodes online, Simpsons is lacking, etc. etc. and now they're putting ads in to the shows, most recently an ad for if you want to advertise on Hulu. Very tedious.

Vipralion said 11:10PM on 5-20-2008

Hulu is pretty great, contrary to what the other commenters have said.

The service is free, and provides good quality streams of popular shows with minimal ads.

It's pretty obvious that NBC nor FOX would want to make entire seasons of shows available for streaming because that's just bad business. There's a reason why they make the box set DVD's of Heroes season 1 in HD.

Additionally, an 8 day delay has been typical for this type of streaming for a while, even on Fox's On Demand service it was an 8 day delay for House, while only a few days for shows such as Bones or Prison Break.

If you don't like watching TV, especially with the numerous, lengthy commericials, then relying solely on Hulu is a totally viable solution. You'll be one week behind in the most popular shows, the one major drawback. You'll actually save about 15-17 minutes per episode you watch compared to watching it on television thanks to the minimal ads.

kellie said 8:00AM on 5-21-2008

I heart Hulu. Am I ever going to use it as my main way to watch television? Probably not. It is, however, a great way to be introduced to shows I missed entirely, shows I've never managed to catch over the air and for me, most importantly, a way to entertain myself when I'm places where there is no TV, but there is a net connection.

jane fromer said 1:18PM on 5-21-2008

Here! Here! Hulu is great. It doesn't purport to be a TV replacement but a compliment. There are many many good shows, not just 30 Rock and the Office...as well as some decent movie selections. Rock on Hulu!

Dagwood said 8:03AM on 5-21-2008

The 8 day delay makes hulu irrelevant. Hulu is only useful when it is more convenient than torrenting. People are willing to watch the ads when they are short. Waiting more than a week to catch a show, means you can not watch next weeks show on air (you will always be a week behind). Currently there is a solid 25 second wait for a video to start, and the "advertise here" banner is annoying (10 to load the blank ad, and 15 to watch it).

Gripes aside. Hulu can be awesome, and I do watch a lot more than 2 hours a month. The back catalog is a great time waster.

James said 9:21AM on 5-21-2008

Are the Hulu videos DRM'ed in any way? I mean, it sounds like they're Flash 9, which IIRC doesn't really support DRM-ing. Maybe there's some kind of program to transcode the Flash video into say MPEG-2 or WMV streams? (I think my ancient CPU would prefer the former)

It would be great to be able to access all this content from a PS3 (or maybe 360), even if I have to have an intermediate step on my PC.

shanoboy said 12:08PM on 5-21-2008

I just wish that the Nintendo Wii could get an updated flash player so I could watch it on my TV with the Wii Opera browser. :)

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