VideoNuze Posts

I'm now back from Digital Hollywood and I've had an opportunity to give Hulu 1.0 a spin as part of its private beta. I've also looked the Hulu offering at AOL which is not yet comparable (less content, fewer features) to the one at Hulu.com. So I think that for now using Hulu through the private beta is the only way to get the full 1.0 experience.

My initial reactions are positive and I give Hulu 1.0 a solid B+, with many of the fundamentals well done, but with certain features needing improvement, as to be expected from a beta launch. All in all, considering the short development window in which Hulu was created, the Hulu team deserves much credit.

Hulu 1.0 should more than silence those who snarkily pre-labeled it "Clown Co" and misunderstood it to be a "YouTube killer", which it is not. Hulu has not embarrassed its primary investors (and content providers) NBC and News Corp in any way, and in fact, has set the stage for taking back control of how its full-length content and clips are distributed online. This was of course the investors' main motivation - creating a legitimate platform for them to control their online destiny and capture the lion's share of the economics.

Once clicking into a clip or full length video, the video player experience was excellent. Not only is the player consistent for all videos, but the quality was as well. I never experienced any delays, re-buffering, pixelation, audio/video out of synch or other typical video issues. In full screen mode there was a little degradation, but was certainly above the acceptable-quality bar.

The biggest knock on the content is its inconsistency. For example, click on "24" and you can choose from 3 episodes from Season 1 and one from Season 6. Battlestar Galactica gives all of Season 1, but nothing else. Same for a classic like The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Huh? All of this makes it confusing for the user to know what to expect. If all this is due to rights or other limitations, it would be good for Hulu to signal or explain this somehow.

Of course, the bigger question is whether this limited amount of advertising is sufficient to make Hulu's economic model work, especially if sometime down the road, online consumption cannibalizes on-air consumption.

Yet for now the create a clip capability is buried in the "Share" feature, which seemingly only allows the custom clip to be emailed. And pinning down your desired start and stop points is very tough. Since custom clips are the only UGC-like opportunity in Hulu, these should be given more prominence. Ideas could include showcasing a users' gallery of favorites, allowing them to be saved to playlists, syndicating them to partners' sites and allowing them to be mashed up.

I had 5 observations from the discussion:

3. Broadband video must be more than just TV - Jonathan made the point most strongly, and others agreed. For broadband to succeed it must do more than just be another medium for delivering existing TV programs. Sure, there's a rush to get broadcast TV shows online, but only real innovation will distinguish broadband from me-too TV delivery. Here, here. I've been preaching that for ages. Broadband offers a whole new creative palette to harness.

4. Cable operators wary of broadband video - no big surprise here, but Dave made it clear that major cable operators are wary of broadband and are focused on retaining as much control of the video experience as possible. For example, I asked what the roadmap looked like for cable operators to enable users to watch YouTube videos (and other broadband-only fare) on their TVs through cable set-top boxes, and if I understood Dave's response correctly, it sounds like no time soon. Quality, liability, and of course control are key limitations. If cable's not going to bring broadband to the TV anytime soon, might that open the door for third-party boxes?

5. WGA strike could drive more broadband projects - Rich speculated that a byproduct of a potential WGA strike and writers sitting around would be that maybe more broadband projects would be undertaken. Hard to predict, but there's certainly plenty of interest in broadband-only production, so my guess is writers wouldn't have a problem finding opportunities. Wouldn't it be ironic if the potential strike, which has new media compensation at its core, actually spurred more broadband video?

Not breaking news now, but Hulu lifted the veil of secrecy a bit today, releasing some screen shots and setting up a private beta (I'm trying to yank some strings to get access), in advance of a planned public launch early next year.

Hulu's been surrounded by a bunch of naysayers from the beginning, though much of the nay-ing has been based on little else than cheap shots about the name, delayed launch, etc. Things that in the grand scheme of things mean virtually nothing in my opinion and only serve to distract attention from the real question at hand: can Hulu become NBC and Fox's (for now) formula for success in the broadband video era?

Now it's time for Hulu to silence the rabble. Until I get my own hands on it, I'm going to reserve in-depth commentary. But at least several things that look intriguing:

• Shorter commercial breaks and overlays - Looks like the tension between user focus vs. advertiser focus is skewing toward users. A welcome change from traditional media thinking.
• Widespread distribution - I've been a big fan of this from the start. Deals with AOL, Yahoo, MySpace, Comcast, etc. ensures that Hulu content is widely available where users already are.
• More content deals - One of the knocks on Hulu was that neither CBS nor ABC joined up front. However, recent deals with Sony and MGM show Hulu continues to gain traction with other premium providers.
• Features - Beyond the standard range of embed, full-screen, send-to-friend features, it looks like there's an interesting "custom clip" capability to let users crop out scenes from favorite shows to pass along. This user control could enable massive new short form video inventory and could be a precursor to more interesting and creative user-generated mashups. All of this is highly monetizable.

More thoughts on Hulu to come.

And for Brotherhood, a program set in Providence, Rhode Island, they landed a cardstacker to create the state's capitol building out of 22,000 cards. Posted on YouTube 3 weeks ago, it's generated 350,000+ views.

For Showtime, and for any other premium content providers, broadband's ability to expose potential viewers to their shows is huge. Doing so with novel approaches like the ones above continue to demonstrate how broadband opens up a whole new creative palette for marketing and programming teams. More evidence that traditional marketing equations are changing.

Ok, no gloating, but hey, maybe time to spell D-Y-N-A-S-T-Y?

When I was in NYC earlier this week I caught up with my old buddy Lewis Rothkopf, who's now the VP of Biz Dev at PaltaIk. I got to know Lewis when he was at Lightningcast before it was sold to AOL. Lewis and Joel Smernoff, Paltalk's COO/President gave me a demo of their latest offering Paltalk Scene.

This product allows full video chat and interactivity in private or public rooms, with up to 5K participants per room. It enables what Paltalk calls "social-casting" which means that all chat room participants can watch the same video in the main window and comment/interact around that video. Kind of like a "virtual bar".

I think this kind of engagement around a specific video is very cool and is certainly going to become more popular going forward. Paltalk has already implemented with a bunch of partners including Lifetime for its new Lisa Williams show. And Paltalk is creating a slew of its own "programs" including comedy specials, celebrity "talk shows" and sporting events (wrestling, tennis, etc.).

For Paltalk the goal of these events is to upsell basic members to subscribe to the premium service so they can see video of other members. Down the road there are certainly many other models (PPV, subscriptions, software licensing, etc.). Any user is able to access Paltalk Scene to create their own room.

Paltalk also has an Active X control right now so content partners can embed the video chat window right into their web site, to both retain branding and also offer sponsorship opportunities. Soon there will also be a Flash embed version, which will allow Mac users to enjoy as well.

In short, Paltalk Scene seems like an easy-to-use system for content providers to deepen engagement with their audiences around specific video events creating a totally new user experience.

It seems like half the world I know is coming to Boston next week for VON and the other half is going to LA for Digital Hollywood. Some of the unlucky ones are trying to make it to both. Too bad that two good shows are overlapping.

Though I'm based in Boston, I'll be heading to Digital Hollywood and will be there from Tuesday morning through Thursday morning.

It's always a great networking event, and I'll be around to meet up. Just drop me a line if you'll be there too.