Hulu.com has become a major disruptive technology in the field of online video that is now dominated by youtube. Hulu has been around for a year but is only now beginning to make mainstream traction and become a force within itself. Youtube right now is still hundreds of millions of viewers beyond hulu but when it comes to a niche of more sophisticated content viewers hulu has build itself a niche that will be hard to breach.
The service offers you the ability to watch TV, Movies, and Clips all from within the comforts of your browser. So you may ask what makes this different than all of the other places where I can view content? First of all it is a collaboration between different media companies so that means you can watch a variety of these shows legally for free. Also the service provides up to date content for a lot of your favorite shows, so in case you miss any shows that day, just wait a couple of hours and it will be available on the site for viewing. For the ability to watch up to date shows there is one penalty cost though, commercials. You get a quick commercial break that last about 15 seconds once or twice during the viewing of the show. The commercials are relatively painless and I think regular TV should take note on how smoothly the commercials slide in and out.
The one drawback on the service comes from the movie section of the site. They do not have the greatest selection of movies compared to similar services such as Netflix’s Watch Now service. Also the commercials are a lot worse in the movie section than it is in the TV section. When I was watching the TV shows I saw one or two commercial breaks, maybe even three. The movie I watched had at least eight to ten commercial breaks and they were all the same commercial. Watching the same commercial eight to ten times even with beautiful women can be a bit nerve wracking. Other than that I am a big fan of the service.
While the market is in a downturn we will be focusing on innovative businesses as well disruptive technologies that we think can withstand the downturn of the market. Hopefully these will provide you inspiration on knowing that even though the overall economy is bad, by being smart you can still prosper.
If you follow the link you will find an interview with CEO of Hulu.com, CEO Video