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Why Hulu Plus May Be a Good Thing

Hulu Plus

When rumors began to circulate that Hulu might start charging for content, you could see the sneers and hear the dismissive exhales, even through the texts and tweets of the people who made them. Was this a case of Rupert Murdock flexing his (clearly) figurative corporate muscles?  Internet content should not be free, people like him argued. The other millionaires and billionaires must have all nodded in unison at the golf course.

The truth is, of course, it never was free. Hulu was always support by annoying, albeit pleasantly short, advertisements, and they will continue to receive large revenue streams from advertisers. Like any good business, however, they know that offering premium content for a price just makes sense. Almost every website does it.

What Hulu is Offering

The question one must ask before deciding if Hulu Plus is worth the $9.99 per month is: “What do I get?

For the price, Hulu subscribers receive Season Tickets, a feature that gives them access to every episode of the current season of a number of popular shows (30 Rock, Modern Family, The Office, Glee, House, Family Guy, Grey’s Anatomy, Bones, Lie to Me, etc.), even the ones NBC, Fox, and ABC unceremoniously canceled (Happy Town, Flash Forward, and Dollhouse).  OK, let’s face, that alone will not make DVR gurus subscribe.

Another feature that may be more enticing is their “Rich Library Content” of past seasons from various shows, some of which have large cult fan followings (i.e. Buffy the Vampire Slayer). The downside here, however, is that they will have to compete with Netflix’s Watch Now service, which offers many of the same past season titles, ad-free. Yes, Hulu Plus still has ads, which they say are necessary to offer the level of service their customers expect and still keep a low price. Right. Oh wait, I am not supposed to sneer while writing this article.

While the content offering may not be anything necessarily unique or spectacular (unless you are just a die-hard ABC Family fanatic want to watch episodes of Greek over and over), the devices Hulu promises to support make Hulu Plus more appealing.  It will still be available on desktop and laptop computers that can run the resource-intense Hulu Desktop app or any other device (such as a netbook) that can connect with a web browser.

Without Adobe Flash player, Hulu Plus is available for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It is also available in your living room on Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players with Samsung Apps.  Moreover, by Fall, subscribers can expect to see Hulu Plus on the Sony Playstation 3, Internet enabled TVs, and Blu-ray players, as well as VIZIO TVs and Blu-ray players.  By early 2011, Hulu will appear on the Xbox 360.

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In the device department, this is where Hulu got it right. With millions of people going mobile, whether it is with phones, tablets, or netbooks, it only makes sense to offer your content through as many device channels as possible. Offering the content on actual TVs is exactly what people have wanted for years and what “On Demand” cable service has never adequately provided.

The range of device support will most likely grow over time, and with it, the range of content offered, as the networks start to rake in the profit.  It is easy to be skeptical and even to hope for Hulu Plus to fail.  I mean, how dare they expect people to pay, but the reality is that they are only offering what we the consumers have said we wanted.  I, for one, am hoping that Hulu’s service will be the first of many. Companies like Amazon.com already have the content. They only need to add an actual subscription service.

A Game Changer?

Hulu Plus may be a game changer, or it may be another failed attempt to integrate TV with the Web. Consumers and audiences are difficult to predict. Hulu’s free site has certainly become popular, but the networks are not satisfied with the amount of revenue it has produced.  Like most corporations, they are greedy, but if their greed drives them to do good things for their customers, I am all for it.

About Hulu.com

Simply put, a bunch of TV network executives had an epiphany and decided to not only offer their content online, but actually make a joint website to host all of that content. It started as a collaboration between NBC (providing NBC, USA, and Syfy content) and News Corporation (providing Fox and some other cable channels’ content). They were later joined by Disney, which added ABC and ABC Family content, but not Disney Channel (something that, oddly enough, would be hugely successful on many of the Hulu Plus devices, if my 6-year-old daughter had a voice in the decision-making process).  Noticeably absent from the list is CBS, which has its own competing site: TV.com.

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Hulu has always offered cross-platform support (for Windows, Mac, and Linux), so while early reports depicted Hulu as uninterested in offering HTML5 video for the iPad, their iOS4 app for Hulu Plus will probably silence those critics.

The ads on Hulu are usually shorter than those on broadcast TV and are often tailored specifically for the Internet, but it is not clear how successful this type of advertising has been.

One area where Hulu has been strong is syndication. They offer tools to webmasters that allow them to embed Hulu videos on blogs, Facebook, MySpace, and more. Furthermore, some cable providers (such as Time Warner, Comcast, and AT&T) offer portals containing Hulu content.

Hulu, TV.com, Netflix, YouTube and any other website that offers content people want is a positive step toward giving the online generation the mobile, integrated media experience they want. Hulu Plus is just another step in that direction.

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I am a librarian with 8 years of experience in information architecture, technology, free and open source software, and electronic publishing. I have written hundreds of articles on topics ranging from information technology to politics. I also write fiction novels, short stories, and fables.

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