
Can Hulu Be A Bigger Business Than YouTube? - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/can-hulu-be-a-bigger-business-than-youtube/
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demallien
I still haven't seen a good implementation of Internet video yet.

YouTube is great for the one offs, the funny things that people catch on
camera. But as Google has discovered, it is difficult to make money out of
that stuff. Only live streaming is available, too bad if you're on the train
on the way home. There is little support for following a 'program'. If you
want to see if a content producer you like has done something new, you have to
visit YouTube. On the plus side, YouTube has made it fantastically easy to
publish work, and to embed stuff in other web pages - most of my viewing of
YouTube clips is done because I see the clip on some other web page.

Hulu is only available in the US, and it only offers live streaming. Again,
too bad if you want to watch somewhere when you are out and about. After all
the effort that we have put into time-and-place shifting our media, this feels
like a big step backwards for me.

Podcasts allow you to watch offline, and they allow you to easily follow when
new episodes become available. But there is no service offering impromptu
YouTube-like serving of clips - you see a cool episode of a show that you want
to share on your blog, then you're out of luck. From the Content Provider's
perspective this is a problem too - having people embed your clip on their
webpage is the best advertising you could wish for if you want people to
subscribe to your podcast. The whole subscribing thing is important too when
it comes to obtaining advertising dollars - you'll have much more success
negotiating a price for ads in your podcast if you can show that you have a
large audience already subscribed.

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unalone
Hulu has flaws, yes. However, they're not trying to do everything at once.
Right now, they're trying to offer high-quality programming in place of each
company having a separate site. Offline watching would be great and all, but
that's not an enormous setback, sorry. That's not a necessary feature, that's
a luxury.

I was deadset against Hulu when it was first announced, as was essentially the
entire Internet. I think it's one of my most-visited sites, now. The
presentation is top-notch: few sites look or work better. And the video
content is all to die for.

Even the social aspects are excellent. They stay out of the way unless you
really care, and they tie into Facebook, which means that they've got a good
social plug-in for when you want to send things over to friends.

If you want a good video site, though, check out Vimeo. Grossly underrated
site, and it's got excellent features and content.

