Hulu 'To Catch YouTube' -- Great, But So What?
from the rising-tide-etc-etc dept
The FT's got a story saying "YouTube is in danger of being upstaged commercially" by Hulu, the online video site owned NBC and News Corp. It's based on a report saying Hulu will make as much in advertising revenues as YouTube next year, about $180 million, despite having far fewer active users. Two points: first, is this really surprising given the strengths of Hulu's parents at selling advertising around content; second, when did this become a zero-sum game? The article sets up some sort of adversarial relationship between Hulu and YouTube, or between professional and user-submitted content. While perhaps there's some competition for advertising dollars -- as there is between any two parties selling ad space -- the two sites don't have to succeed solely at the other's expense. Despite what the likes of Andrew Keen would have us believe, there's room enough on the web for both professional TV shows and amateur fat cat videos, and the success of one doesn't intrinsically mean the failure of the other.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: advertising, hulu, revenue, youtube
Companies: google, nbc universal
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Hulu's success
I just wish there was a good way to watch Hulu on my TV. The day that someone comes up with an XBMC plugin for Hulu will be a happy day, indeed.
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I'll be glad when they figure out that Hulu really is the way to go and stop doing stupid things like waiting 2 weeks after the air date to post an episode (in which case, I'll just torrent the episode sooner)
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What's a Hulu?
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Advertising Dollars are not an INFINITE RESOURCE
Maybe it's time for Google to improve the quality on YouTube, especially for commercial content. And they should definately look into providing a solution that allows for sponsor supported ads to be integrated into the videos just like Hulu. Integrated ads are far more effective than ads on the sideline because that are not easily ignored.
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My 2 cents
Which is exactly why I wouldn't go to Hulu if I could find the same video (even lower quality) on YouTube.
I sometimes watch videos from cable tv's web sites on my TV (all you need is a vga cable on most TV's if you don't care about HD) but one of the biggest turn off's is the damn ads they put in every 5-6 minutes.
I get that they need to make money, but when I pay for cabel, pay for high speed, have ads on their sites AND I have to watch their ads every few minutes and every time I try to rewind or fast forward that pisses me off.
Sure side bar ads can be ignored - that's why I'll chose YouTube over Hulu any day. Naturally I'm assuming Hulu will try and block there content from showing up on YouTube...good luck with that.
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US Only
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TV ads
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Sad, but inevitable.
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My primary concern with Hulu is that it's created and backed by an industry that clearly has a different agenda in mind than releasing its content for free. If they had their way, it's clear they would want every single viewing to be paid for, along with shoving advertising down your throat, along with forcing you to purchase each new iteration of the content in a separate format, just because. That's a clear abuse of their customer base, and it's good to see that people are fighting back in some ways.
Hulu is disconcerting because it feels like they're holding one foot in the pool while the other is safely standing on the edge and someone else has ahold of one arm reassuring content holders that they'll never let go.
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ads
nothing is ever free, but i'll continue to deal with these "intrusive" ads, because its just better than spending money on cable.
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youtube
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