Man, has Hulu nailed online TV viewing or what? First off, they have a huge library of content that people actually want (e.g. SNL, Family Guy, Daily Show, Colbert, Kitchen Nightmares, etc.). And then they really execute on having a usable, effective UI.
You do have to watch ads with Hulu. But just one at a time. The timeline lets you fast forward to anywhere in the show and also displays where the commercial breaks are located. That means you can go to any part of the show you want as long as you watch one ad first.
A timer lets you know exactly how long you’ve got to go when ads are displayed. Watching the single ads Hulu shows takes the same amount of time as fast forwarding through a whole normal commercial break on DVR. Result: You actually wind up watching more ads on Hulu than you do on a DVR but it takes the same amount of time.
And there’s more typical UI stuff you expect from a video site but it’s all executed nicely…
Sort through episodes by date, popularity, etc.
Search snaps right to likely results.
Go full screen, raise/lower the “lights” of surrounding area, etc.
Kudos Hulu.
condor
on 10 Oct 08One other reason to love Hulu: back when the networks announced the idea of the venture, before it had a name, some tech blog ‘experts’ (and potential competitors) panned it hard, calling it “clown co.” etc., promoting the idea that anything funded by old-line television networks couldn’t stand up to the revolutionary video products coming out of silicon valley. It will be a while before we know if hulu can be a commercial success, but so far hulu has proven, to me anyways, that they understand content consumers and care about making a product thats a pleasure to use. There’s a highway littered with half-dead silicon valley video company’s that have access to exactly the same content, but haven’t taken the time to understand the consumer.
I Kinda Hate Hulu Actually
on 10 Oct 08I watched both seasons of Friday Night Lights on Hulu and I kinda hated it. Either they aren’t doing progressive downloads or their implementation of it is very poor, because even on my brawny Mac Pro with high speed broadband the videos skip, stall and stutter constantly. (I really don’t understand why nobody but Apple seems to be able to buffer video properly). Furthermore, they run the same commercial over and over throughout each episode. Tedious. Maybe my experience was not typical, but I found it thoroughly dissatisfying. And ultimately, I’d just prefer to pay for my shows and watch them like a movie - in high quality and with no interruptions - and now that NBC is back on iTunes I can. Yay!
Dan Sinker
on 10 Oct 08I actually think the biggest favor Hulu did for themselves-bigger than having a good UI-was finally allowing users to embed Hulu content elsewhere. That’s sealed the deal for them, as far as I’m concerned—they finally recognize the fact that you can have more pull by going to where your audience already is, instead of making them come to you.
Tanner Christensen
on 10 Oct 08I love Hulu.
Whenever I’m bored on a weekday night with nothing on TV I open up Hulu and watch some old episodes of my favorite shows. They need to start looking into paid movie “rentals”, if it’s cheap enough they could really beat out places like iTunes for users.
Danny Cohen
on 10 Oct 08I have a great experience with Hulu, and the commercial times are a great compromise for people who are used to fast forwarding (also, Fringe has been airing with shorter commercial breaks, and have found that more viewers will stay knowing that they are 60 to 90 seconds long right from the get go).
The interface for Hulu is great and simple and so un-network that when I tell people about it they are “it’s free and legal?” In terms of buffering, it all depends on the speed of your computer and internet. On my old Mac Mini, it can’t do the 480p, but on the same connection my MacBook Pro can handle whatever video quality.
F. Yang
on 10 Oct 08Totally Matt! I’ve been using Hulu since it’s private beta. Save some cable bills for the gas tank :)
Mike Simoens
on 10 Oct 08No Hulu for me cuz i’m Canada… COME ON?
M.
Derek
on 10 Oct 08I’m in Canada too, that Geo-Retarding is getting a little ridiculous. I wish they would just get the damn content licensing issues sorted out, if that’s really the reason for the delay.
Frank D
on 10 Oct 08Hulu is one of my favorites as well. They have a great business model and are likely to be on par with Youtube in terms of revenue, even though Youtube gets way more traffic. The design of the site is clean and if they keep getting more content partners, they will stick around for a while. Very impressive site.
jkottke
on 10 Oct 08Most of their stuff is available in HD (480p) as well, which is nice.
Jesper
on 10 Oct 08Derek’s “Geo-Retarding” phrase is harsh but accurate. I cringe every time I can’t see a video someone’s linking, and I find it a bit more unlikely they’ll expand to Sweden if they won’t even expand to Canada.
Tim Jahn
on 10 Oct 08They definitely put it all together well. I wrote a while back about the awesome sharing feature they have. They definitely understand what content the consumers want and how to provide it the way the consumers want.
brad
on 10 Oct 08My favorite aspect of Hulu is your personal queue & the ability to subscribe to TV series. Also the RSS feed they provide for your queue.
Nismoto
on 10 Oct 08Netflix: No commercials; No ads. My viewing never pauses or chokes and the quality and stream is much better.
I know, I know. Hulu is free and Netflix is not. However, $9 a month is throw-away money to me.
Plus, I get DVDs.
Grant Blakeman
on 10 Oct 08Hulu is great when Comcast can actually keep up – haha.
Seriously though, what amazes me about it is how much of what makes the service great almost never happened. Wired has a great story about how Hulu came to be and how some of the things like the large catalog, embedding, and fewer commercial weren’t in the original plans.
Duncan
on 10 Oct 08I love Hulu, but one thing they do wrong is remove content. I was working through a show and one day the whole season was gone because it was coming out on DVD.
pwb
on 10 Oct 08The Hulu user experience is pretty good but still too fussy. I’d like to see the Hulu content delivered through iTunes/AppleTV.
And kill the clips. Full episodes only!
I’d also like to see the MySpace “Minisode” content expanded and pumped through iTMS/AppleTV.
Jason
on 10 Oct 08Try finding previous seasons of shows on there… they just aren’t there. I know I know, they want me to buy the DVDs… Sorry, I don’t buy DVDs of shows that come on TV. And their selection of movies? It’s like the selection you find at the very back of a store in the bargain bin marked down to next to nothing… Their mostly really bad, overplayed, or old… though not all… But every time I try to find a movie to watch there, it reminds me of the selection of rentals you find in some small town convenience stores.
pwb
on 10 Oct 08Nismoto, the amount of content available for streaming on Netflix is worse than dismal. Puh-leaze.
Paul M. Watson
on 10 Oct 08If only this internet thing worked outside of the States. Oh wait, it does. Come on Hulu, I want to watch your ads here in Ireland.
david
on 11 Oct 08Have u Canucks never haerd of Hotspot Shield?
Stephan
on 11 Oct 08Agree – it’s hard to call something great if it’s broken for 19 out of 20 people, i.e. the world outside of the US.
Jason Pettus
on 11 Oct 08Something else I wanted to point out about Hulu: On just a tiny amount of content right now but steadily growing, they also have an option for closed captioning, something otherwise sorely missing from the world of online video.
James Carr
on 12 Oct 08What they don’t have is captions. It’s a slap in the face to the deaf community. :(
James Carr
on 12 Oct 08Scratch that… looks like they DO have captioning on tv shows… well done, and about time! ;)
Peter Urban
on 12 Oct 08sadly only available in the states
kelake
on 13 Oct 08Great UI aside, I don’t get the attraction. If I must watch TV I prefer to do so from the couch and away from the tool I use for work.
Patrick
on 13 Oct 08Until they figure out how to bring it to everyone they haven’t nailed it.
Yes, I know there are options like HotSpotShield that I could use, but it shouldn’t be necessary.
Jemaleddin
on 13 Oct 08Seriously? No matter whether I’m at home on my fiber optic connection or at work on my commercial line, Hulu’s streaming is crap. I feel like I’m trying to watch RealPlayer. Blech.
Pavel Kostychev
on 13 Oct 08I’m in Israel and there’s no hulu for me too…
melissa
on 13 Oct 08arrrrgh, you’ve failed to mention that it’s US-ONLY! thanks for getting me all excited. Oh well, there’s always YouTube…
dickless
on 13 Oct 08epic FAIL… only thing worse than hulu is writing about hulu… forgotten what www means?????
Rory Marinich
on 14 Oct 08Hulu does video content right. They serve the largest part of the video community – the TV watchers – and they do it perfectly. The detail that won me over? Letting me log in while watching a TV show, without refreshing the page and having the video skip. I can’t think of another site that I use often that does that.
Hulu haters – suck it. I get it if you’re not in the U.S., but INSIDE the site is superb. (I’ve never had streaming issues, though, so I’m perhaps a bit biased.)
steve
on 14 Oct 08“Sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed from within the United States”
Man, have they really nailed being utterly f*cking useless or what?
Michael
on 14 Oct 08Hulu is awesome for so many reasons, but beyond the nice UI and all the other nice bells and whistles there is one “feature” that totally seals the deal for me: they have all 3 seasons of Arrested Development. It doesn’t get any better than that.
This discussion is closed.