Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Hulu Gaining Fast on YouTube

Hulu Set to Surpass YouTube in US Advertising Revenues in 2009
Hulu
The Financial Times is reporting that Hulu.com, the upstart backed by NBC Universal and News Corp as a video-sharing site is projected to equal and possibly even surpass YouTube in U.S. Advertising revenue next year.
This doesn’t even remotely surprise me despite the fact that Google has been trying to monetize YouTube since they bought YouTube two years ago.  Why?  Well, ask any young person – especially college students how they are getting their Television.  Most of them get at least some of their Television online – and many of them get it from Hulu.com.  Do kids (and others) still get TV from torrents?  Some do, but it’s hard to beat Hulu for quickly and easily catching up on a show.  YouTube is better known for user-created junk.  Yes there's some good stuff in there, but it's so poluted that it's nearly impossible to find the good stuff.  And other than a few CBS shows, you'll not find many Televisions shows you can catch up on.

At my house we missed an episode due to operator error on the HTPC (READ: Brent spent too much time mucking up the live HTPC with beta testing.)  To save the day we watched that show on Hulu.  It isn’t as good of quality by any means, but picture this:  We put a laptop (connected via wifi) on the kitchen table while the two of us finished up dinner.  The picture quality and streaming quality was really pretty good considering.  Yes it helps we were watching on a laptop-sized screen, but it was fast, easy and it works.

If Hulu would work out better deals with the content providers to begin integrating Hulu with hardware and software (HTPC) vendors imagine how the online TV content would spread in use.  They would multiply their audience in a big way, sell more advertising and everyone except for the cable companies would be happy.
via Financial Times