Hulu.com online video launches, leaves criticasters speechless

Hulu.com has launched its limited beta yesterday, and we at 77Lab are still waiting for an invitation! Ridiculous as this is, we can let you know that the new online video service is getting raving reviews, after often being ridiculed on various blogs during its development phase.

Hulu is a site where anyone can watch licensed video for free, supported by advertisements. The true television model online, but viewers will be allowed to watch what they want, when they want to. It has some major advantages over YouTube and Joost: it offers officially licensed, professional quality content like Joost, but no programs need to be installed, like on YouTube. So far, the site shows NBC and Fox programs such as The Office and The Simpsons.

The New York Times further points out that users can make their own video clips and post these on their websites or send them to friends through email. It touches on the fact that ‘Hulu wants to offer the rich video that people are used to seeing on television,’ and that this might present huge costs which will have to be compensated for by advertising. So far, the channel runs mostly commercials of car brands – as usual – but Hulu is obviously looking to expand their advertiser group. The point will be: how much advertising do they need to run to clear their overhead costs, and how much advertising will the public put up with to watch content for free? We think Hulu could profit of targeted marketing, if they can successfully demographically identify their customers. Public reviews will help here.

We expect this to be a major turning point in online video (marketing), and as soon as our invitation is in, we will let you know.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 1:00 am and is filed under Video Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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