Free, Legal and Online: Why Hulu Is the New Way to Watch TV

Free, Legal and Online: Why Hulu Is the New Way to Watch TV

“What’s a hulu? In August 2007, this question ricocheted through the blogosphere to a chorus of derisive laughter. Fox and NBC were going to make the Internet safe for television! They were building a ‘YouTube killer’! And they were calling it Hulu! It was almost too perfect—an absurdist topper to the idea that two major broadcast networks could devise an Internet video service people would actually use. The name was even more delicious than the venture’s placeholder moniker, NewCo., which the online world had changed to Clown Co. And now Hulu? It means ‘snoring’ in Chinese, one blogger declared. ”Cease’ and ‘desist’ in Swahili,’ Michael Arrington reported on TechCrunch. ‘Perhaps they should have just stuck with Clown Co.,’ he added.

Jason Kilar read these posts and winced. A 36-year-old ex-Amazon.com executive newly relocated to Los Angeles, Kilar had followed—even admired—many of these bloggers for years. Now he was Hulu’s CEO, and their ridicule wasn’t so funny.

What’s a Hulu? Kilar had gotten the same question from Jeff Zucker, chief of NBC Universal, and Peter Chernin, president of News Corporation, Fox’s corporate parent. In English it means nothing. In Mandarin, when pronounced another way, it means not snoring but ‘bottle gourd,’ which, in an old Chinese proverb, stands for a ‘holder of precious things.’ If you say so, they responded.

Even Kilar was starting to wonder whether he could make this thing work. Along with the new name, he had just announced that Hulu, which he had been running for only seven weeks, would launch in beta in two months—much later than expected but far too soon for a team that had barely gotten started. He was heading an operation of 20 people holed up in an office suite in West LA. To meet the deadline, he had turned the place into a bunker: Newspapers covered every window. People were sleeping on air mattresses on the floor. Half-eaten pizzas littered the empty cubicles. Fruit flies were the only visitors.

But Kilar would make it work. He and his crew would emerge from their dismal cave with the sleekest, easiest-to-use, most professional video site on the Internet. Not only would it deliver shows and movies from Fox and NBC Universal, it would take you to programs from every other major network and studio. Full-length episodes. Entire seasons. For free. Within months of that late-August announcement, Hulu would be among the top 10 US video sites in number of clips streamed. Om Malik, one…

(Via Wired News.)

Video Conferencing Tip from the Pros

The editor at our cross-Pacific sibling, Lifehacker Australia, picks up a tip from Cisco’s conferencing and video chat veterans: Once you’ve positioned your web cam or video link correctly, drop the window that shows your own mug. You’ll maintain better eye contact, focus on the conversation, and generally seem more involved. Can’t get by without some self-reflection? Tell us why in the comments.

(Via Lifehacker.)

YouTube is the Ultimate Sharing Site and Google Needs to Capitalize on That

Sometimes, you don’t have to think of new improvements and features for your web service; your users do it for you. Such is the case with YouTube, which – while purely a video sharing site – is being used for sharing all kinds of data by the users, simply because they find it synonymous with sharing.

What do I mean by ‘all kinds of data’? First, music. Ever seen a music video on YouTube that isn’t really a music video, but simply a song with some pictures slapped on it just to kill the boredom? There are plenty of services for sharing audio files out there, but kids are using YouTube because they’re used to it, because it’s simple, and because all their friends are using it. AP has an interesting article on this topic.

It doesn’t stop at music. You can find song lyrics (karaoke style) or even chords embedded in some videos; some users are sharing photos simply by stringing them into a video with music, etc. Video is definitely not the best vehicle for sharing all these types of data, but I see more and more users doing it; for them, it obviously works better than other available options.

Now, I’m not really sure if expanding focus to other types of data is the best course or even a good idea for YouTube. But I see untapped potential here; users are obviously already using these features – although they’re not quite there – so why not provide them? Of course, the folks at YouTube would have to be extra careful not to overly complicate the service and/or confuse their users. But if they pulled it off well, it might turn out to be a very smart move.

Please, feel free to voice your opinion in the comments: should YouTube add support for sharing other types of data, or should it stick to video only?

(Via Mashable!.)