Filed under: Internet, Video, Web
TV.com wants to be a social Hulu
In other words, you can add TV.com to the long list of online video portals, most of which are showing pretty much identical content. What CBS hopes will set the site apart from the competition is the existing user base that uses the site to view TV listings, episode guides, and the site's social features. The site has active forums, reviews, and a ton of information about TV shows, actors, and other entertainment related items.
What it doesn't have is a user friendly interface for browsing online video. If you click on Videos or Shows, you may very well get to a page that has information about and video clips from a TV show. But it's not until you click on the full episodes button that you'll find out whether or not full episodes are even available. And I wasn't able to find a single page with a list of TV shows available for viewing like the ones you can find at Hulu and other popular video sites. Sure, most people will probably find it easier to search for content than to browse, and the search engine works reasonably well. But again, it just takes too many clicks to find out whether full episodes are available for streaming.
TV.com certainly has the potential to be a major player in the online video space. The site has a great URL and a good selection of content and features. But if CBS is serious about making it a portal for watching videos and not just reading about them, the site still needs a little work.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Quikboy said 6:06PM on 1-12-2009
Sounds a lot like what MSN TV already does. You can find a smörgåsbord of information about TV series and episodes, and MSN pulls in all sorts of full episodes from its partners, including Hulu, CBS, PBS, National Geographic, etc. Also, after comparing the way they display listings, I'd have to say MSN TV is much better. It doesn't take forever to load, displays more shows on all at once, has a good color & tag system to easily know what you're looking for, and you can click on the link, and the information will show up right on that page. Also, TV.com didn't put the channels in order as they appear on my Comcast provider like MSN TV does.
Considering CBS now owns it, how sure are we that the site isn't swayed and much more biased to CBS content? At least when it was independent, you could be sure to find a lot of information without too much bias. I admit they do have a bit more wealth of information per episode, but that's about it.
I'm not joking when it has a lot of episodes: http://tv.msn.com/tv/browse/?ipp=200&tvbt=3
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Nic said 4:50PM on 1-13-2009
Oh, like boxee...just less cool.
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Chris said 9:41AM on 1-13-2009
These types of sites need to do a better job of letting you know what content they really have instead of sending you to another page and after the jump you realize they don't have full episodes, but just a clip or worse, only a bio about the show. http://tvontheweb.blogspot.com
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