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."

Comments

Complementary

[4D6963]

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.

click their ads?

[gEvil (beta)]

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?

Maybe just a little killing?

[Grandiloquence]

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.

Except...

[christopherfinke]

Hulu Launches With Few YouTube Killing Qualities

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.

Re:Except...

[Alsee]

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.

COOL!
What site did you go to? Because I want it too! It sure as heck wasn't Hulu.

Oh sure it's got the "legitimate, [] copies of popular TV shows and movies that are free to watch []". But the quality is painfully unwatchable crap, and I can't imagine what prompted you call it a standard format. The resolution was perfect but the framerate was unwatchable - it made me want to gouge my eyes out.

They still don't 'get it'. They still do not understand the internet. They are still BATTLING against the internet. They still have DRM Derangement Disorder. The 'format' is still the delusional notion "we will download a stream to them, because a stream magically isn't a download!"

Call me when they get over DRM Derangement Disorder, when they understand that "stream" is merely a download that you can start watching while it downloads. Call me when they start including MPEG or AVI or other proper formats.

They're sticking commercials in... fine. No one likes commercials but they are legitimate and reasonable and acceptable. But as far as the current Hulu goes, the eye-gouging video and DRM Derangement Disorder, No. Just go grab a torrent. They just don't get it. If they sabotage their own service it's just not going to be used. They can have their commercials, but so long as they have DRM Derangement Disorder and sabotage themselves "legitimate" is the only thing that is going to be lost from your list "legitimate, good-quality copies of popular TV shows and movies that are free to watch in a standard format".

In a way I sorta hope you were just astroturfing. Maybe they actually watch how the campaign is/isn't working and pay attention to the kind of replies it creates. Maybe.. just maybe.. the massage will finally get through their thick skulls of why some things on the internet take off like wildfire and some things are steaming turd piles that sit there doing SQUAT no matter how much they spend on development and how much they spend on viral marketing schemes. If they offer what people want - and that means normal non-crippled formats like MPEG and AVI - then they will get the viral buzz for free. If they don't, no amount of investment is going to succeed.

-

This is no surprise

[Paktu]

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.

Why will they go to Hulu?

[webmaster404]

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.

The hype! The horrible, horrible hype!

[Scrameustache]

for a lot of viewers this will prevent the service from becoming with online video Shangri-La they'd imagined. No viewer that actually exists ever imagined this would be an online video Shangri-La.

You had me until "NBC Universal and News Corp"

[Dan667]

Really, what kind of blood do they require for the EULA? Think I will pass.

Actually, it's a different question

[KingSkippus]

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.

Re:Actually, it's a different question

[KingSkippus]

Um yeah you can watch it on your TV, either:
1) when it airs
2) from your VCR or PVR
3) if you have a decent cable package that has "On Demand"

Maybe you don't want to watch this content on your computer but many of us do. This is who they are serving.

And more power to you, but you've completely missed the point.

Like I said, the vast majority of users out there do NOT watch television on their computers. Which means that any service that requires one to do so is serving to a very minute audience, and as such, is probably doomed to failure in the market unless they manage to price their service expensive enough to recoup their costs.

Meanwhile, there's a perfectly good service out there, iTunes with an AppleTV, that allows me to watch programming:

1) When I want
2) On my computer, my iPod, or my television, and
3) For an extremely low price (around $350 to $400 a year for the 10 or so shows I watch) compared with a "decent cable package that has 'On Demand'" (at least $720 a year in my area).

But because NBC is being such a dick about telling me when, where, and how I must watch their shows, and because other networks and other content creators are being so stingy with their stuff hoping they can be the next Google or something, I'm supposed to put up with watching stuff on a monitor that's half the size of my television, listening to it on my computer speakers instead of my nice surround sound system?

No thank you, NBC et. al. can go to hell, because that's the only place I'll be watching their shows on my computer.

I'm sorry if it makes me sound like a demanding consumer to expect companies to provide an easy means for me to watch their shows when I want to, where I want to, and how I want to. They don't have to cater to my tastes if they don't want to, and I will continue not watching their shows. However, considering that the vast majority of the world are consumers that are pretty much like me, if they keep that attitude much longer, they will completely lose their audience to other companies that realize how much better it is to please their customers instead of just telling them to watch the show "when it airs, from your VCR or PVR, or on a decent cable package that has 'On Demand.'"

Jesus, do you actually run a television network? Because you sure sound like the pinheads that do.

The funny thing is that I was actually serious, I don't do BitTorrent to get television shows or movies. (Or music either, for that matter.) I simply choose not to watch the shows. But I totally understand people who do. I mean, given the choice of all these stupid limitations imposed on people by content creators, versus being able to simply download DRM-free copies of whatever they want and streaming it anywhere to any device, burning media of it, and whatever the hell else one might want to do with the content, why would you not use BitTorrent instead of some asinine service like Amazon.com's unbox service, Netflix, or Hulu? The way they keep shutting down distribution channels for their media, you'd think the companies desperately want copyright infringement to run rampant.

The iTunes/AppleTV solution isn't perfect, but at least it gives me lots of options, covering pretty much anything I want to do with the media, for a very reasonable price. If it weren't for that and the fact that I don't watch more than 10 or so shows regularly, I probably would resort to BitTorrent just to get everything.

Re:A better Youtube killer

[Anonymous Coward]

is this: http://stage6.divx.com/
In a word, no.

Any website that requires the installation of yet another shitty plugin(tm) can piss off.

Sensationalist headlines

[jgc7]

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?