Hulu was tagged as a YouTube challenger, but one visit to its site tells me that is not the case, and that was confirmed by CrunchBase , which wrote...
Hulu is NBC Universal and News Corporation’s online video joint venture. The site is set to launch in the Fall around October and will focus on professional content and not take on YouTube directly as a viral video destination. The site raised $100 million in financing from Providence Equity Partners.
Hulu videos will be played in their own embeddable branded player. Content from at least a dozen TV networks and two major film studios is promised. Initial distribution partners include AOL, Comcast, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo.
Jason Kilar, hulu’s CEO, explains “Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we’re building.” However, we’re not so sure it was the wisest name to pick.
It's rumored that News Corp./NBC have acquired Bejing-based startup Mojiti and will use its platform for the basis of Hulu.
NBC has always tried -- and failed -- to capture the Internet for it's use. This is the latest go around. NBC misses the boat because it is trying to use Hulu as a basis for its TV shows, even charging for each episode. That news left this blogger to say...
"NBC executives are crazy if they think I am going to Pay $5 an episode for TV Shows. I live overseas, but will happily ban watching any and ALL NBC shows. $1.99 per show or less than $35 a season is not bad. I hate to see what else they are going to do."
And that's the point. NBC executives are crazy. The problem is no one's telling them so. Look, if you've got TV programs no one will see on TV, people aren't going to rush to see them in droves online. NBC was bitching about iTunes and only making $15 million but that's because few people knew NBC shows were on iTunes. Plus, for those that did go to iTunes, they had a chance to get other content, not provided by NBC. That's all NBC's fault that they didn't work to promote their iTunes presence. Tisk.
I mean how stupid is this. You have this great way to tell millions of people about something at once, and you don't use it. NBC did not tell its viewers about iTunes on a consistent basis, and so it failed. No big surprise to me. And guess what. NBC's going to repeat the error with Hulu.
It will also be no big surprise when Hulu fails, either. I'll give it two years, tops. For more on the reasons why, stay tuned. And for another set of good reasons, check out Mr. Bren's take.
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