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Hulu Launches With Few YouTube Killing Qualities
Hulu.com, the online video venture from NBC Universal and News Corp., has launched a private beta program. Early reports suggest it's far from being a YouTube killer. "Although Hulu's parent companies have done a lot of things right with the service, the scheduling leaves something to be desired. For the time being, the site will only feature five weeks worth of content for any given show. From there, it's assumed that older content will get the boot in favor of newer episodes and movies. This isn't necessarily a deal breaker for us, but for a lot of viewers this will prevent the service from becoming with online video Shangri-La they'd imagined. Furthermore, with the lack of user-generated content, it falls short of the end-all be-all site for online video. Viewers are still going to go to YouTube and still click their ads -- but in terms of piracy a minor rebellion may have been quelled."
is this: http://stage6.divx.com/
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
... is NBC trying to create a "Youtube Killer" ?
... but if all NBC is trying to do is offer their recent tv shows online then it sounds like NBC is doing exactly what they set out to. Did NBC ever mention trying to compete with Youtube ? I thought they just didn't want random people uploading random content that NBC owns the copyright to on Youtube. Not trying to steal the "market" or something.
I thought they were just trying to provide a service where you can get their videos through a medium that they control ?
Also, (while I didn't RTFA), if they provide full length episodes in a single stream then they do offer something over Youtube. While I can often find complete episodes on youtube they need to be broken up in to 10 minute clips and sometimes you find the first 10 minutes and then can't find the rest of the episode and that's really annoying.
From the summary it sounds like their major "gripe" (for lack of a better word) is the lack of user generated content and only fresh episodes
Actually this service has little to do with YouTube, and doesn't risk to kill it, since Hulu and YouTube are actually complementary. YouTube serves user-submitted content and no shows, and Hulu serves no user-submitted content and nothing but shows. So actually it has little to do with YouTube, it's just a free web-based VoD service, I guess. Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but that's just no YouTube killer at all.
You just got troll'd!
So one is a corporate outlet for streaming their shows, while the other one is a hobbyist amateur creative outlet.
They compete with each other how, exactly? How is one the killer of another, when they operate in a completely different niche?
Viewers are still going to go to YouTube and still click their ads
Okay, I get the first part, but the second confuses me. Does anyone actually do this?
This guy's the limit!
If it can't kill YouTube, can it at least kill the mouth-breathing YouTube comments? I would also settle for just killing the comments at the source.
Is it DRM'd or will we be able to rip/watch it without Adobe flash?
Young Tom Riddle was a talented and upcoming Wizard. With enthousiasm and zeal, he was constantly finished first of his class.
It was near the end of his studies at Hogwarth that Tom Riddle had a series of encounters with sexual predator, Teacher Dumbledore. Traumatized by multiple sexual assaults by Dumbledore, Riddle became obsessed with death and changed his name to Lord Voldemort.
The rest is history, as they say...
I can only hope, that somewhere on their intranet, they've got a subdomain called ct. Please please please make it so if anyone reading this has the power.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Except for legitimate, good-quality copies of popular TV shows and movies that are free to watch in a standard-ish format. I don't know about you, but that kills YouTube for me.
This doesn't surprise me at all. Youtube was started by a couple nerds who wanted to create a simple, easy to use video sharing site. Hulu is being created by decree from old media executives with conflicting priorities- they want lots of people to see their content but also want to control its distribution. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the engineers and programmers working for NBC are slightly less capable than those working for Google.
HULU THAR, DURLINGS!
Pluse, PLUSE cahm and jewn mah nee sayte! Oot's gahing tah boo FUBULUS! Wa'll heve OOLL the cahlest vadeas freem sume af thu antirnut's BOGGEST und BASTEST toolents!
LAVE und KESSES,
Dame Edna Hulu
Besides the obvious fact that Youtube and Hula are directed towards different markets, there's another major factor that prevents Hula from being a "Youtube killer." Youtube already has a giant fan base of regular watchers with no reason to switch. There is no way Hula can suddenly (and magically) change the behaviors of all, or even a large portion of the youtube community. In order for that to happen there would have to be something "wrong" with Youtube that Hula fixes.
When all is said and done, Hula may get rolling, but there's no way it will stop or even slow Youtube at this point.
The original generic sig.
Its the Microsoft effect working, people don't like change even if Hulu managed to be 100X better then YouTube people for the next 5 years would still be on YouTube, why hasn't the Mac and Linux gotten more appeal even though most people agree that its a better operating system? Its the unknown and the average web browser/computer user won't remember about Hulu. And also, about the "pirated" things, its not the things that are on NBC, ABC, FOX and CBS that people want, its the things that they can't get off-air such as Comedy Central, Disney and things that aren't out in America/Europe/Japan such as most Anime, T.V. shows and movies. People would have no problem paying if they could get the content they wanted, for a reasonable price with No DRM that works on Every format (Linux, Windows, iPod, MP3 player, DVD player, PS3, etc.) with infinite free downloads if your hard drive/flash drive fails. No one is going to change from going to YouTube in any large crowd anytime soon, and not to NBC who seems to be a foe of open content.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
Wow. Imagine that. Some tool trying to create a "web 2.0" service and giving it a Chinese, Hawaiian or Swahili word name.And why hulu? A site with videos of NBC content named after a chinese word for "health"? What the fuck? That makes no sense.
I've previously ranted on my dislike of the [product]-killer label, but considering my diminutive post count I'm certain no one has read those comments.
Labeling any new product as its primary rivals (and defacto market leader) as the killer of the original product by any party does no good to actually help the product succeed. Continued reference to the original product by the new product's producing company can reek of arrogance, whereas the reference by either that party or by any media coverage can imply that the new product does not have the foothold in the market necessary to become successful and still publicizes the name of the original product, keeping the original product in the spotlight.
For example, and I am not using this to ruffle feathers, simply as an example, the Zune was labeled as an iPod-killer by multiple parties. Were I an uninformed consumer looking for a new digital music player and happened to be reading a commentary on the "Zune" which referred to it as "Microsoft's iPod-Killer" two things would come to my mind. 1) What is an iPod, and 2) Why does an iPod need to be killed?
Labeling a product as the killer of another product can also be the byproduct of a lack of objectivity in a review, which can also be inferred by the reader as a lack of faith in the product. Are many users satisfied with their Zune purchase? Yes. However, as an uninformed reader, if I see a paragraph begin "Unfortunately, Microsoft's iPod-Killer doesn't---" then I may consider evaluating my future purchase when the Zune may have suited my needs perfectly.
And I realize that this is not at large the fault of the Slashdot submitter, and often these are quotes from the article, but I find it very disconcerning to see such remarks in what should b an unbiased critque of an application in a private beta stage being compared to a well-identified landmark on the internet.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
You can't take the sky from me...
Really, what kind of blood do they require for the EULA? Think I will pass.
char[15] str;
str[0] = 'a';
ifstream word ( "parent_post" );
for (a!=NULL)
{ word>> str;
if ((str[0] == 'h' or str[0] == 'H') && str[1] == 'u' && str[2] == 'l' && str[3] == 'a' && str[4] == NULL) str[4] = 'u';
}
The original generic sig.
if you are gonna just drop older episodes of your shows, and the visitors would be required to be informed of your scheduling so that they wont miss episodes, i cant just use your goddamn service.
we are living in a fast paced world, there are already loads of things that i need to keep track. keeping track of 3-4 tv shows, nomatter how i may like them is totaly off the agenda for me. id rather save the variable space in me brain for more important stuff.
in short, im basically telling you to shove your scheduled service up your butt, nbc.
Read radical news here
I'm no expert on US trademark law, but it seems to me that NBC could be in some hot water for entering a market that already has among its players the established brand "Lulu" by trading one letter out and calling their competetive service "Hulu".
I know the TV networks got away with this decades ago (NBC vs. ABC) but this is getting a little silly.
Considering that Google Video search will just index the content, and Google owns YouTube, Hulu is just making Google fatter and richer.
*killersaregay
To me, it's an entirely different question.
Can I watch it on my television?
I think it's really weird that Amazon.com, Hulu, Netflix, and so many others think that I watch television on my computer. I don't. I watch television on... well, I watch it on my television.
Now, I know, some of you have fancy media PCs set up so that you can watch television on your computer on your television, and if you do, congratulations, sounds like you've got a nice setup. But the vast majority of people don't.
A while back, I bought one of the AppleTV boxes. Know why? So that I can watch television on my television, not on my computer. So now, I buy shows from iTunes. I've also been known to rent a movie or two on my Xbox 360, which is also hooked up to... well, you already know what it's hooked up to, right?
So to NBC, and to anyone else who wants me to watch their stuff, unless it's short clips that are posted on sites like YouTube, it doesn't matter how great the quality your programming is, it doesn't matter how simple it is to download and watch it on my computer. If you can't give me a relatively simple way to watch it on my television, I'm not going to be watching it. Period, end of story.
By the way, that's one of the things that would be so hypothetically great about downloading torrents of movies and/or television shows, if I participated in such illegal activities. With a few button presses, I could have a DVD copy of anything I download to watch at my leisure... ON MY TELEVISION!
Come back when shows on Hulu can be watched on an AppleTV, or when you're willing to let me burn a copy to DVD. Maybe then, we'll talk. (Somehow, I kind of doubt we'll be talking anytime soon.)
Now mod me up, dammit, that's one of my better rants, and something painfully obvious that I don't see discussed very often in these threads.
I see the large hit to Apple's stock caused their market cap to exceed that of IBM.
A kudos to your well-reasoned argument, sir.
At least, it has been for me, for TWELVE YEARS NOW. Get with the times and quit yer whining. There is no need to have a separate device for doing X at home, when your computer can already do X at home. Typewriters were made obsolete first, then tape recorders and cd players, and now cable boxes and dvd players. Or, you can continue to purchase redundant functionality while simultaneously limiting your options (The programming I have to choose from is far more than anybody I know who uses no computer in their setup. Even the netflixers)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
On the corporate blog there is a sample video. The URL to watch any video is of the form:
http://www.hulu.com/embed/1734 In a stunning lack of foresight the number is the primary key of the record in the database. You can enter anything less than 1850 and view the shows. Since they give permission to embed on your own web pages, I've embedded a sample of ten random shows
To purchase it is not like spending money but rather it is an investment in the future in a blow against the empire
That damn headline is a real disservice to slashdot and wired...
Let's see.
1) Real TV Shows
2) Runs on Linux
3) No DRM
4) 100% Legal
5) Free (as in Ad supported)
The headline should read, "NBC, FOX finally get it right. Let's hope it lasts."
The comparison to YouTube is just moronic, and the gripe about only 5 episodes being available just shows how stupid the author really is. Does anyone actually expect the networks to canabalize DVD sales by releasing the archives for free?
70% of statistics are made up.
1) upload and share mp3, oggs and other audio to share with everyone, no need to create a stupid one frame video to make it acceptable to youtube 2) Upload photos 3) Playlisting of everything, and the ability to mashup things - i.e. photo slideshow + music 4) Some decent social functions 5) Better video quality than youtube's crappy 320x240
You may have deeper, uglier problems than just a rootkit if you are choosing Sony over Charmin.
Disclaimer: I don't watch or know the titles of any good NBC shows.
/. that easily!
I had a look at hulu earlier. I was as impressed as everyone else. [Hits the snooze bar] Everything that was on there that I find interesting, I could just go to Fox on Demand to see along with other shows that weren't listed on Hulu.
I do like the concept behind it. It offers the benefit of legal viewing of TV shows and it alleviates the hassle of waiting an hour for something to download from bittorrent. Really, if they offered more shows (say... whole seasons and a better variety) I don't think I would ever leave the site. But who am I kidding? I couldn't break my addiction to
The game.
a decent monitor costs exactly as much as a decent television because they are one in the same. 1920x1080 desktop. No other monitor. This is it. 42-inch 1080p LCD $2350 Costco this month. Nice to finally escape 800x600-land (SDTV practical limit). I guess the television isn't inexpensive, but nobody actually needs a monitor that big, because the TV is already a dot-by-dot pixel-perfect LCD. It's yummy.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I'll agree with you on one point. That they still don't understand the internet. But no one wants it on television, and no one cares if it's in AVI or MPEG. I'm going to explain to you the nature of how this entire industry actually is right now. (Please be warned, this is a very biased opinion of what I think about the media industry, and is inspired by cultural theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno
(I'm going to say 'They' alot.. so lets try and define 'They' "The Media, specifically referring to the Media Industry; more specifically, traditional forms of media who feel at risk by new mediums (ie internet), such as The Music Industry, The Television Industry and The Movie Industry)
It's a multi-faceted problem, which I'd really only boil down to two.
The first problem, which they don't really seem to understand, is how choice works on the internet.
The second problem is the culture of excessive demand for their media, and the medium in which it translates most effectively and efficiently. (Which, also, they don't understand).
I'm a 22 yo computer science student, so I'm going to be making some assumptions that really only speak for the majority of my demographic on the internet. (we're the leaders of the future, non?), but I think it speaks volumes on how this industry has just become way out of touch, and are trying really hard to either do some catch up or screw it all up.
1) Ok first problem is choice. Ahh.. the beginning of the information age.. I can still remember the excitement every time I heard my 28.8 modem on my intel 486. communicate to my very first ISP. I remember just reading, reading and reading. I remember reading so much, I don't think I picked up a novel for a couple years when I first got in bed with an ISP. There was already so much to figure out, so much to share, so much to communicate, so much to learn and never enough time to take it all in. Most importantly though was that the real value of it all wasn't in anything you could find anywhere else, and I say it was choice, real choice for that matter. The previous model of society that we participated in, was based on limited social graphs coupled with well established, yet strict forms of mediums, for the information to distribute, controlled partly by demand and partly by profits. So you were limited with what you were presented, and how easy it was to get at it.
Now we have a medium where the demand is fully transparent, and at best it favors accessibility. Heck the first relevant tool on the internet was a search engine! How else to get at all the information? And best of all this medium is one in which you can participate in, and to crystallize that, it's universal particpation; there's no '2 or 3 or 4 'competing' networks, there's 'one' internet! Thats value! So now the traditional industry is kind of SOL on this medium, because their current model depended almost strictly on playing role of both producing the content and trying to tell the consumer what's good. Good shows? Prime time. Good stories? Front page. Good music? Top 40. These industries really controlled the medium in which media was distributed, but in contrast likes to claim that they just delivered what we wanted. Fine, all well and dandy, I'm sure they do their best with Neilson ratings, best sellers lists, charts, etc, and try to make inferences based on that information. They made a lot of money doing it. Probably through high demand and limited choice. But real choice isn't the crap they make for prime time, that stuffs for mass consumption. We finally have a medium where we can truly choose what we want out if it because the real value in it is based on how we participate. Ah.. Choice! Good to know we don't have to be a slave to prime time. Is it really a surprise that these industries are loosing money in their traditional form? It's not piracy that they're losing money to, lets get that s
"Hulu" is the Chinese word for "oink," i.e. the sounds that pigs make. Coincidence?
"Watching Access Hollywood is like driving 10 SUVs!" -- Al Sharpton
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So they'll let me browse the Web site with my UK IP, even let me sign up to the private beta with my UK IP, they'll let me load in the flash video viewer with my UK IP (none of this has warnings to say "go way you UK person"), only to be brought to a halt when I actually try play the video. Nice work there, Hulu.
Yet again US TV companies have no clue when it comes it streaming their content to non-US viewers, so it's off to "other locations on the Net" to get a higher quality, ad-free, non-DRM'ed version of the show within 24 hours of airing...
Can I rip the content (read: steal) and play on other devices? Sorry, NBC, we want our video our way!
I think that folks misunderstand the purpose of his site. it isn't supposed to be a user generated content site like YouTube. It is going to have a *lot* of Hollywood content. What we are seeing now is still beta and they have a lot of work to do to prepare the content for the site and get it ready. I've heard that when they are really ready you'll be able to have things like all the episodes of the Simpson's available online and be able to watch ad supported. They are also planning on doing cool things like breaking Simpsons into a clip library so you can find segments you like and possibly string them together for your own viewing.
This is Hollywood content site NOT YouTube.
Would have modded you up if I have mod points!
streaming [] you seem not to like
You misunderstood my complaint. Well, actually I also complained about Hulu's settings of a max frame quality & unwatchably low framerate, but that wasn't really the issue I ranted about. My complaint was their DRM Derangement Disorder of refusing to offer anything but a stream, out of the mentality that stream magically *prevents* it from being a download. Streaming technology is fine, so long as you realize that it is merely an enhanced download format that can be viewed during transfer. Streams are fine so long as they don't assume/expect/attempt-to-enforce that it not be a permanent download.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Oh, yeah, of course! Yeah sorry about that. I just started on some crazy rant about the industry because the more I was thinking about what you said, the more I was getting angry at the industry. .. I think yeah I prefer avi my self, and would get a lot more value out of it without DRM... no one wants crippled media, as specially if you're paying for it!
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This blogger is already offering Hulu invites:
http://www.lauontech.com/hulu/hulu.html