Hulu.com [1] does video on-demand correctly. For what it is, it's nearly perfect. There is plenty to criticize Hulu for, but there is so much more that it does well. For those who don't know, Hulu is NBC and Fox's answer to Youtube... sort of. Remember back when Youtube was mostly a collection of SNL skits? Well, those are all on Hulu now for the most part. NBC, like all of the other media corporations, like to make money when their content is shown online. They don't always like to pay residuals on it, but that's another story. NBC and Fox created Hulu so they can sell their own ads and not worry about some twelve year old punk watching a thirty second long clip of Deal or No Deal for free on Youtube. Anyone can still watch crap like Deal or No Deal for free online, but now NBC will make a buck off of it. You see, Hulu is ad supported (SHOCK!) but it's not terribly intrusive or annoying. In return for putting up with a fifteen second ad for Chili's new bacon flavored fried rib poppers you'll get to watch a full episode of Benson, <Matthew Lesko>FOR FREE!!!</Matthew Lesko>
Hulu has been live for a month or so now. I first learned about Hulu late last year during it's ill fated beta [2] period when people discovered how to access Hulu's content by changing the URL. I didn't think very highly of it at the time, most of these 'Youtube killer' and 'iTunes killer' applications usually ammount to nothing. Last month I started playing around on the final Hulu site and it seemed worthwhile. There was plenty of content I was looking forward to watching, like Family Guy [3], The Simpsons [4] and The Office [5]. I was pretty impressed with the catalog. One weekend I hunkered down and watched the entire Three Sheets [6], which I wrote about a couple weeks back [7]. This past weekend I watched a movie called Beer [8] from the mid 1980s. I'd never heard of this movie before and probably never would've seen it if it weren't on Hulu. Not that I enjoyed the movie or anything, but David Allen Grier was in it, so that was cool. And that's what on-demand video should be about, watching stuff you've never heard of, for free, and this is where Hulu shines.
Thanks to Hulu I've been able to catch up on the second season of 30 Rock [9] and I'm hoping to finish watching Heroes [10] soon so I can write a blog about how Lost [11] is a superior show.
My complaints with Hulu are not major, this isn't a Triumph of the Liams [12] after all. Mostly, there are shows like Law and Order [13] that are only on Hulu in excerpts, I don't get it. On top of that, the image on the Law and Order splash page has Jerry Orbach on it, and while everyone knows Detective Lennie Briscoe [14] was the best character ever in the history of television, he's dead and hasn't been on the show for like four years.
Hulu could benefit from adding more shows to it's catalog of course. NBC and Fox own tons of networks that produce loads of shows that I don't care about and will probably never watch. The lame part about Hulu is that it's tied to only these two companies, so content from CBS, ABC and others will probably never show up there. ABC has a digital service of it's own and uses iTunes, which is a nice platform in it's own right. The problem with iTunes is that it has a business model that isn't ad supported like Hulu, so you have to pay to download the shows, you can't stream them for free. Look for this to change if Hulu's popularity increases. I like having Lost on my video iPod as much as the next guy, but if I can stream it for free I'd rather do that than put more money in Steve Jobs' pockets.
Here is a list of shows on Hulu worth checking out
- Jack of All Trades [15] - Starring Bruce Campbell, it's a post Revolutionary War period spy comedy... seriously. And they made two seasons!
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia [16] - Another comedy, airing on FX, it's about some aholes in Philly that get into insulting and unethical situations.
- Arrested Development [17] - If you don't know why this is worth watching then we can't be friends.
- Highlander: The Series [18] - The classic series from USA, like so much junior high all over again. Unfortunately they only have the first season.
- Who's the Boss? [19] - I'll tell you who's the boss. It's not Tony or Angela. It's not even man-crazy Mona.