Hulu is NBC Universal and 20th Century Foxes joint venture designed to shut Apple out of the online video market. NBC Universal pulled all it's content off iTunes for it, and Fox will likely follow suit.

I got an invite to that as a beta user. As a die hard Apple fan/user/shareholder, I kinda feel like a traitor now. O well.

As for business model. Think about it. If they make $1 per viewing from the advertiser, and $1 per download, it stands to reason you would make more money in model 1, as a fan might be more inclined to watch it over and over again. The iTunes model has the studio's loosing control over it. The Hula is view only, no downloads (as far as I can tell). Also, I imagine there is more direct control on demographic information. You have to create an account, which gives age, gender, location stuff. Basic, but then they can see who likes said programs, and steer ads to them more specifically (and charge more) for when they air on TV. Just theories.

I think you're correct on every account, omnis. For the advertisers (and so studios) it's great as people can't skip the adverts (take that, Tivo generation) and they can demographically tailor the adverts on the fly for the individual viewer.

What they haven't realised, yet, is that their streams can be saved - their digital rights management stuff is broken. (I had a go earlier and got around it in about 4 minutes).

Ooo how?

I won't get into it here (and yet). There's a thing called OPENhulu (dot com) which lets all the content be screened without having an invite, also (which is perfectly legal, due to the fact they let people embed their content). Also, that site has a link at the top which lets people outside the US watch. So, uhm, well done studios on that score - iTunes content had unbroken copy protection on it.

they're not going to be of use to anyone not named "Kristen."

heh. i was just remembering that i have a pair of boxers around here somewhere that DeKnight signed, but yeah. they have my name on them and an inside joke that only bronzers would probably get.

i'm trying to remember if i still have a script signed by him. oh! i do. trying to decide if i want to part with it. it's for the ep All the Way. do you think there'd be interest?

If they make $1 per viewing from the advertiser, and $1 per download, it stands to reason you would make more money in model 1, as a fan might be more inclined to watch it over and over again.

But they'd make even more money by offering both, as some fans might be inclined to watch first (sitting at their computer) on Hulu and then go buy a copy to keep (& watch on a portable media device) off of iTunes. See above, re: pissing match.

I'd forgotten about Openhulu. Finally a way for me to catch up on 30 Rock at work!

If I can't download it to my portable device (or even to my computer) I'm really not interested anymore. I used to be okay with streaming entire episodes, but with the spotty performance of streaming video from the networks, I'm not confident that my viewing experience will be at all enjoyable. The only thing I watch streaming any more is YouTube stuff, and even then, anything over five minutes is too long for me.

Yeah - personally, I think iTunes is a really good platform because a) the studios don't have to worry about the technical distribution cost (bandwidth etc) b) piracy is pretty difficult c) for a viewer they can take the episodes with them (iPods, iPhones) or watch them on TV (Apple TV) and d) they can subscribe to a season and get it automatically to watch.

None of which is possibly via Hulu. I think the Hulu embedding in HTML thing is genius, though, because people are already doing that on blogs and fan sites all over the place.

Hulu is the production companies' attempt to control the one area they don't already control. I am highly skeptical about it as a result.

Hey, should there be a Press post about Cash for the Crew? I just checked, and I don't think I saw one. I'd do it myself, but it wouldn't be very eloquent. At this hour. And I'm heading out the door. But not without sticking my nose in OPB first.