Hulu Finally Launches Private Beta
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | October 29, 2007 | Share This
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Despite delays, naysayers, and a lawsuit, News Corp/NBC Universal video site Hulu, which will provide free, ad-supported TV shows and movies, is finally in private beta (with a new logo) and getting pretty good reviews.
Hulu will stream content from various networks, but is notable because unlike existing TV network sites, it will also syndicate its content to partner sites and allow users to embed clips; though it will be in private beta for some time, some of its content is available on AOL and MSN already. Though it doesn’t allow uploads of user-generated content, users can select clips of any length and email or embed them on their own sites.
Kara Swisher has Hulu screenshots and notes that it is poised to “shake up the online video market”:
But Hulu’s willingness to send its content far and wide from the get-go, with very little friction and using easy tools to do so, is perhaps the most compelling aspect of its debut.
Finally, someone in Hollywood has realized that ubiquitous distribution, which is being driven by consumers’ desire to move their media anywhere they want, whenever they want, is the future.
NBC Universal exec Jeff Zucker today also commented on NBC’s earlier decision to pull its content from iTunes, noting that Apple’s revenue model hurt NBC. From Variety:
NBC U programming accounted for 40% of iTunes’ video sales, but because of the revenue model in place, Zucker used it as an example of the kind of digital business model that is corrosive to the media business.
“We don’t want to replace the dollars we were making in the analog world with pennies on the digital side,” he said…
Zucker argued that the 50 million streams of TV shows had been accessed on NBC.com during the month of October prove there is a demand for traditional TV series on the web. “It’s extraordinary,” he said of NBC.com, “it’s like a small cable channel in our universe that is becoming very successful.”
Hulu should solve NBC U’s problems with Apple’s revenue model as online television consumption continues to gain popularity - and as analog dollars shift over to the digital realm.
Topics: Media Convergence, Online Video |