>Deep linking is critical – new idea from YouTube
>With increasing amounts of long form video content available on the web, it’s going to be increasingly important for publishers to provide mechanisms for segmenting or deep linking into videos.
People have always chunked programmes into segments, perhaps favourite bits or funny scenes or lines. These have been manually segmented and uploaded since the day YouTube launched. Here’s an example and excuse to watch the famous McGyver coffin jet ski escape scene:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTWEh2mcdsg&hl=en&fs=1]
Read More>The story of the YouTube killer
>Wired has a very interesting article about Hulu with an interview with Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu. Jason explains how he came to be involved and how from March 2008 to August they created the 8th largest video site in the US.
There is a great quote in response to the viewing figures the web receives in comparison to TV, from Peter Chernin, president of News Corporation, Fox’s corporate parent.
“So what?” Chernin says. “You can’t protect old business models artificially.” This is a truth the tech community knows well, but it’s not what you expect to hear from a media baron like Chernin. What he and Zucker [chief of NBC Universal] have come to understand is that the media companies no longer have a choice: If they don’t put their shows online, someone else will. “The best way to combat piracy is to make your content available,” Zucker says. “We don’t know for sure what the impact is going to be on our established businesses. But we want to make sure consumers know they don’t need to steal our content. That’s really what Hulu is about.”
Read the whole story, it’s an interesting read.
Read More>Why I trust Hulu (part 2)
>In a previous Hulu post I waxed lyrically about the design and general loveliness of using Hulu.
That’s obviously important, but without quality content it’s just html, flash and some quite well done ads. The way Hulu deals with its wide range of content is very impressive and something we can all learn from. Essentially where the content originated from is given little importance. When you view an episode of Heroes there is no mention of which producer, channel or studio owns it. In Hululand it’s the content and the genre of the content which is important, not whether it’s a Fox, Warner Bros or Discovery channel programme.
This is a brave and I believe probably correct approach. The BBC could possibly have launched iPlayer without the channel associations, but they didn’t and now it’s very difficult to imagine them ever going. If you imagine BBC content on Hulu, there would be no mention of the channels, the stamp of quality would simply be ‘BBC’.
The breadth and amount of quality is impressive (probably greater than that on offer at any given time on the iPlayer). You can watch 37 episodes of Buck Rogers (including the fantastically titled ‘Planet of the Amazon Women’), 57 clips from the Onion News Network, 1152 clips from The Simpsons, 5 episodes and 65 clips of Heroes, and it looks as if all new episodes of The Daily Show will be available.
There are hundreds of full movies, from classics through to more recent releases, and many more movie clips. All for free. Critically, Hulu’s content is high quality, profesional content and it’s becoming clear this is where the advertisers want to be.
There is a Family channel on Hulu, but the content and the site as a whole are definitely aimed at adults. I imagine at some point this family channel will spin off and a child friendly version of Hulu will launch, possibly to try and compete with the power of Disney.
So what next for Hulu? Well content, advertising and territories are key for future success. Hulu’s in a strong position in terms of content, being backed by NBC and Fox, but there is content from many other providers. The competition is lagging, Joost is going browser based but critically, without the content it won’t make the same impact.
YouTube is miles ahead of everyone in terms of video views and audience, but being mainly user generated content, it’s struggling to bring in the advertising bucks that it should be.
Here in the UK we can’t view any Hulu content, and it’s unlikely we’ll ever see hulu.co.uk launching. The main channels in the UK are heavily invested in either the iPlayer, or the future release of Kangaroo (hopefully). It’s unlikely that these channels will hand over content to Hulu, but hopefully project Kangaroo will learn a lot from Hulu and will launch with an impressive, clean, mature and uncluttered product next year. I might register Kangarulu.co.uk just in case.
Note: In the UK you can browse Hulu and get a sense of the breadth of the content, however you can’t actually watch the video – unless you are sneaky, or you know someone sneaky.
Read MoreWhy I trust Hulu (part 1)
>I’ve been aware of Hulu for sometime, the video joint venture between NBC and Fox, but never really understood the appeal. Hulu now ranks No. 8 among the Top 10 online video sites, which is impressive growth, especially considering that you can only watch the content inside the USA.
Somejiggery-pokery by someone more techie than me has meant that I’ve recently been able to view Hulu as if I was within the United States. What I’ve seen has been very impressive and I’m convinced Hulu is setting the bar by which all video sites should be measured.
Firstly the design of the site is clean, uncluttered and importantly trust-building. By that I mean it’s very professional looking, the images are sharp, high quality and well cropped. There are no banner ads or MPUs. In a world of cluttered crappy video sites, Hulu straight away is different. There are no flash video thumbnails, there are no gimmicks, no content rammed down your throat.
The interactions on the site are simple and logical, and for a site with a lot of content, you never feel overwhelmed. Hulu says ‘you can forget all those crappy video sites which chuck content together and hope it works, THIS is how you do it properly.’ This is an important message in the very cluttered and messy world of online video. Consider the recently relaunched Warner Bros thewb.com and you’ll see what viewers tend to get elsewhere.
The navigation is simple, divided into TV and Movie content, all viewable by popularity, alphabetically and by originator or studio or network. Recently created are channels, where you can view all the content by themes such as ‘Home and Garden‘”. All consistent, all trust building.
The site really comes alive once you start watching the content. The video itself is beautiful, clear and of very high production quality – further from YouTube it could not be. The video has all been produced consistently, cuts are clean, the fades are consistent and the dynamic junctions with the adverts are the smoothest and most painless I’ve ever seen.
The player has all the usual features, with a couple of pleasing additions. When you share or embed content, you can select a specific clip or segment using in and out points. We’ve seen this before but of course it is well executed on Hulu. While watching a clip you can browse other content without interrupting the playing video, encouraging discovery and exploration.
The big step forward with the player is the way it deals with advertising.
A timeline shows when the ad breaks are and during the ad breaks there’s a countdown timer explaining ‘your video will start again in 5 seconds’. During an advert you can indicate whether you like or dislike this advert. It’s not clear the actual effect of this, but one would hope that it will lead to tailored ads. Adverts tend to come from the same advertiser throughout a programme, as if the programme is sponsored. This makes the whole experience feel much more cohesive than many other sites.
There are a lot of ads (less than watching the programme on US television though), but because Hulu is clear about when the ads are and how long they last for, as a viewer you really don’t mind. Hulu doesn’t commit the cardinal sin of showing me the same advert over and over again as I view different videos. When so often video advertising is a painful experience it’s refreshing to see it done well and bodes well for the future.
You can get this content for free in many places on the web. But doing so is generally illegal, takes ages and the quality is often poor. Why would you bother when you can go and visit www.hulu.com where it’s available for free, in beautiful quality and the cost is watching a few reasonably well crafted short ads?
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