Showing posts with label Hulu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hulu. Show all posts

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Hulu Reveals Its Secret, An Evil Plot to Destroy The World. Enjoy.

I think everyone in the online video world who was watching the Super Bowl XLIII were keeping an eye out for this ad. My friend Reed Kavner wrote on his blog Hulu Introduces Itself to the Mainstream – Cancel Your Cable, "This is more exciting than most Super Bowl ads because it reveals something about where NBC sees themselves heading. NBC is airing the big game this year and is also the co-owner of Hulu (along with News Corp). As we all know, buying ad time during the Super Bowl ain’t like buying time on a parking meter. But apparently NBC sees some benefit in forgoing the several million dollars they could demand from an outside advertiser to promote their new platform (irony alert!)"

During the game on Twitter Huludotcom sent this message, "Keep watching. The secret behind Hulu will be revealed during the 2nd half of the Super Bowl." In case you missed it I've embedded it below.



Hulu also created this embeddable Super Bowl Ads widget also embedded below. Fans will be able to view them on Web sites NBC.com, Hulu.com and SuperBowl.com. Hulu will allow users to vote on their favorite ad and the winner will be announced Feb. 3.



Follow Hulu on Twitter: @huludotcom


Related:
Updated on Techmeme buzz and more:
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , ,

Thursday, November 13, 2008

NewTeeVee Live! Online Video Conference Today in San Francisco

NewTeeVee Live is the premier online video conference produced by NewTeeVee on taking place today at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, CA. The Main Stage Presentations and Red Carpet Interviews were streamed live on Ustream from 8:30 AM to 7:00 PM PDT.

Big names in Hollywood and online video were on hand for the day-long event to discuss the future of internet video with keynotes by Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Anthony E. Zuiker, creator and executive producer of the CSI franchise.

I was unable to attend do to my busy work schedule but I caught a few minutes during a break and saw some of Anthony E. Zuiker's keynote and Liz Gaines on stage with Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing TV. As I was writing this post at 6:30 PM PDT On Malik just wrapped up the day session with closing remarks and the live stream is off air.

They have archived presentations on-demand and I've featured the three major keynotes below.


Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, says success is about being obsessive.


Reed Hastings, Chairman and CEO of Netflix on how to achieve Video Nirvana.


Anthony Zuiker, creator of the CSI franchise, talks cross-platform storytelling.

NewTeeVee posted updated all day which you can read in the list below and you can subscribe their RSS feed.
Discussion on Techmeme:
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , ,

Sunday, November 9, 2008

YouTube and MGM Forge Partnership to Post Full-Length TV and Films

Tomorrow, YouTube will announce a partnership with MGM to distribute full-length television shows and films says New York Times writers Brade Stone and Brooks Barnes. Under the new agreement with 84-year-old film studio episodes of “American Gladiators” along with full-length films like “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven” and clips from popular movies like “Legally Blonde” will be posted on YouTube and be free to watch with Google ads running alongside the video. While the line up is somewhat limited and not that compelling it's clear that YouTube is after a larger share of the online video market to compete for advertising dollars with the popular online video site Hulu.

Read the NY Times story here: MGM to Post Full Movies and TV Shows to YouTube - NYTimes.com

The article notes that YouTube is in the process of rebranding itself to lure studios who have avoided partnering YouTube and comaplain about their lax approach to copyight enforcement. James L. McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, said “YouTube is essentially saying to media companies, ‘We are sorry for our past copyright stance; we weren’t thinking big enough. Let’s see how we can make some money together... "They have hundreds of millions of views,” he said, “and it will be very hard for studios to pass that up."

YouTube has introduced many new features of late including increasing uploads to 1 GB, Theater View which has been likened to Hulu's "lower lights" feature and Video ID which allows media companies to spot unauthorized clips of their content on the site and either remove it or leave them up and and sell ads on them. As part of the deal MGM will monitor the site using the Video

"We believe in comprehensiveness, and we want to have deals with everybody,” said Jordan Hoffner, the director of content partnerships for YouTube. “We want to be able to give users the most content possible.”

This partnership with MGM could be the first of many possible partneships with other studios. Hoffner hinted at other possible deals with Time Warner and Sony, a part owner of MGM.


Read more here:
Posted by at
Labels: , , , ,

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Weekly Review: NY Times Goes HD with Brightcove, Blip.TV and Other Funding Updates, Hulu, CBS, Ooyala, iPhone, G1 Google Phone, Netflix, Qik

Here's another weekly review of some of the significant online video events from this past week. While I don't intend this to be an ongoing feature on this blog and I do think that these stories are of interest. I've only listed a few links to some of the sources to save time and energy. While there was a lot of news of layoffs at companies big and small I didn't cover any of that here.

Beet.TV has a two-part post on the New York Times story below which you see here and here.

NY Times Implements HD video with Brightcove 3


From Reel SEO
"NYTimes.com launched a new video platform today powered by Brightcove 3 (check out our interview with Brightcove) that allows for video content to be more easily integrated into their content sections and provides an overall enhanced user experience. Apart from the complete redesign of the video library page, the new platform offers several other benefits over the previous platform powered by TheFeedRoom."

Here is the company press release.

Funding updates
Online Video News
Gadget news
Stay tuned, I have several draft posts that I'm working on which will be published soon.
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, December 22, 2007

A First Look at Hulu

What is Hulu? You may have heard that NBC recently pulled all their content from iTunes to launch their own video portal. Well they did, and they call it Hulu, an invitation-only online video site from NBC Universal and News Corp , and it joins the ranks as a YouTube rival.

"Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself... Our hope is that Hulu will embody our (admittedly ambitious) never-ending mission, which is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premier content when, where and how you want it" - Hulu's CEO Jason Kilar, in his first blog entry.

That was in August 2007, when Kilar extended the invitation to try the Beta site and provide feedback. He added that, "Within that same timeframe, we will also be offering great programming through our distribution partner sites: AOL, Comcast, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo."


So I was pretty excited to finally get my golden ticket to Hulu a few days ago, and at first glance it definitely captured my attention. The video library is extensive and well suited to my taste in contemporary and nostalgic entertainment. Current NBC hits like Heroes and 30 Rock, The Simpsons and classic shows like Alfred Hitchcock or Mary Tyler Moore, WKRP in Cincinnati can be viewed in their entirety and look great at standard resolution and not that bad when expanded to full screen. The selection is quite extensive, with networks and studios that include the likes of NBC, FX, 20th Century Fox, FOX, Fox Television Classics, FUEL TV, SCI FI, Bravo, USA, MGM, MyNetworkTV, Entertainment Channel, National Geographic, Sundance Channel.

It takes time to browse the library.You can spend a lot of time browsing through the library, but it's easy to find popular clips like SNL's viral video sensation, Lazy Sunday.
You can even watch full-length movies and embed any video onto your web site, like another SNL-alumni classic, the 'Blues Brothers Movie' (I embedded this one for buddy Rob!)



The video player interface is well designed and you can read the WebwireTV post for a nice review on the look and feel of the site, Hulu - A Great Free Video Service That Seems To Have Improved Greatly Since Launch.

They have a small HD Gallery which only features videos in H.264 at 1280x720 resolution. You need a 2.5Mbps Internet connection or greater and a pretty fast machine. They looked great at native resolution as well as full screen.

Here's my feedback to the Hulu UI designers on browsing.
I’d like to be able to toggle between views like on a Mac or Windows to see a listing rather than have to wade through thumbnail after thumbnail. Please though don’t give me the YouTube bubble, I want to be efficient when I search, Check out Apple trailers page to see what I mean.

Open HuluSoon after Hulu launched, a web site called, Open Hulu appeared mirroring the same content but it didn't require a password. A crafty guy named Matt Schlicht is behind the web site that embedded all the available Hulu videos onto a public site. It's chock full of advertising and you can read WebwireTV's post on OPENhulu - Hulu Videos For Everyone, Invitation Or Not | How Long Will It Last? for more details.

This Download Squad post seems to think that it's only a matter of time before the web site gets shut down. But it’s actually pretty cool that they’ve given the control to edit the clips to make our own unique clips to embed on our websites. In the face of the writer's strike, it will be interesting to see what other major development in this area will be and who else will follow suit.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)