Hulu, Preview

For you media geeks out there, the debut of Hulu -- the collaborative Fox/NBC video site effort -- has been greatly anticipated. Media pundits much more qualified than I have been expressing their both their optimism and their skepticism about what power the site would wield, and what its success or failure would represent for online entertainment content.

Hulu functions as the official home of professionally-generated, ad-supported NBC and Fox content. It was conceptualized as a video destination that would provide such a unique and comprehensive user experience that it would transcend the fact that the world really doesn't need another video destination. Sure YouTube, Joost, Break.com, Veoh and other video products are still figuring out the legal/user-generated/pirated content dilemmas, but they are established, popular, easy to use and highly entertaining. Hulu must pull audience share away from these better-known, more collaborative competitors and provide an engaging experience that pulls in enough ad revenue to justify its existance as a high-profile also-ran. Hulu also has to overcome a few unique challenges, like acquiring rights to enough content to satisfy ravenous video consumers, and fighting itself for traffic -- at present most of the site's content is available elsewhere, for instance on iTunes, Amazon Unbox and even the Fox and NBC home pages themselves.

Because the media world thinks I am special (ok, because my Fox-employed sister thinks I'm special), I got my hands on an ultra-exclusive beta logon. And because I have had this honor bestowed upon me, I decided to share my first impressions.

The interface:
Refreshingly spartan (but bordering on sterile). When navigating a content site for something good to watch, I hate being bombarded with alternatives to show I came there to watch. A large banner for "The Office" took up the top two-thirds of real estate. Scroll arrows offered options for a few featured shows, and the nav and search features are simple and unobtrusive.

Making a selection takes you to search options and browse categories. The results are displayed with large, clear thumbnails of the shows, a few details and favorites rankings. There's also a list of content sources, in case you care about who's getting revenue from each particular show you pick. I don't. Stick to keyword searches.

The player
A win for Hulu is that the player is gorgeous. The video is crisp, though less so when watching animated shows. Options include full screen views and a lights out feature that dims the screen surrounding the player, for less distractive viewing. Yet, as the video content streams, popular content seems to stutter quite a bit, especially if your connection isn't top-notch. Also, though you can scroll through scenes to any point you wish, there's no real way to tell how far into an episode you've gone. Markers with a time-stamp or scene description would have been a great addition to the scrolling capability.

The goods
This is where Hulu misses the boat. Hulu is the first major corporate media foray into online video. And, much like most corporate entities, it has decided that it's in control -- it will give users choices, but only within the confines of it's self-serving model. Thus, there is no user-generated content available on Hulu, and no real options for users to interact with the site or the content. There are some nice feature where you can select clips of clips to email to your friends, but there's no ability to mash up the clips or upload your own. You can, however, build a personal profile and rate videos, but there are no forums or real community features yet. Without at least the ability to integrate your profile into other applications to get these other desired features, why would you even bother creating yet ANOTHER online persona?

The money shot/revenue
The ability to control ad revenue and copyrights seems to be the real motivation for two huge media conglomerates to band together and build TV Networks 2.0. So how does the advertisement portion of the site rate?

That depends on whether you are looking at it from the advertiser or consumer side of the coin. From my professional/consumer standpoint, the ad model is a step in the right directioin. The ads are less obtrusive than many sites, and they only play at intervals that are determined by the length of the program you're watching. If you are willing to invest in 2 hours of your time to watch "Blues Brothers"...again...in front of your computer screen instead of on your comfy couch, you may not protest too loudly about having to sit through a 30-second spot; clips or TV eps may be a different story.

The ads are also programmed so that if you go back to a video you've already seen, you will likely not get the ads again. The first time I checked out Hulu, I saw a very few ad logos dispersed throughout the site -- and those I did see didn't seem to want to load, even while the video was working perfectly. Of course, with parents with names like News Corp and NBC, you can afford the short-term losses to lure in big-budet, premium sponsorship opprtunities.

Overall, the Hulu service is designed for users to watch, not get involved-- just like with the traditional model of TV viewing. To me, this says, "You will watch our shows, you will sit through our commercials and you will feel grateful that we're giving you a nice screen and convenient scheduling choices." Thing is, with a million and one social networks, video sites and content creation options online today, we don't have to settle for this anymore. Moreover, if we can't find more of a reason to stick with a site than to mind-numbingly watch what is presented to us, we may visit, but we won't stay long before we go back to our fave place to find video of dogs jumping double dutch and IM our buddy list about it. If I wanted to watch and not participate or interact at the same time, I would just watch the show on Tivo.