I was anxious to receive my invitation to beta test the new online video venture from NBC Universal and News Corp. - Hulu.com. The media had been touting it as a Youtube competitor that would be focused on professional content and I was eager to see exactly what it was and how it compared to Joost (My first week with Joost). There is no competition between Hulu and Youtube - I will go to Hulu for my professional content any day.

Joost has been a welcome service for me and when combined with Hulu, I frankly begin to need my cable even less. Hulu has a decent library of content so far, ranging from older television shows like Airwolf to current shows like Family Guy and Heroes and even movies like Blues Brothers.

It is extremely easy to use, finding content is a breeze, and the partners to date are impressive. DVDs won’t be the only way in the future to see the content we love so much. So far I have subscribed to Family Guy and Bionic Woman so I see the new episodes as they are made available. I have also checked out episodes of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (seeing as how there is a strike and no new episodes are airing right now), brought back memories of my childhood by watching the A-Team and Airwolf, and laughed out loud when watching sketches from Saturday Night Live.

The revenue model is straightforward - a 10-second pre-roll clip letting you know who sponsors the broadcast, a banner hanging around on the page and limited commercial interruptions from the sponsor - on par with Joost and in no way annoying. The video player has little white dots along the timeline that actually let you know when the commercial breaks will come. Ads do not always air at these points so far. I have seen advertising from Cisco and Nissan so far. I cannot tell if the ads are being targeted to me in the same way as Joost (seeing an ad for Madden NFL during a CNN show on Joost has to be the result of targeting based on my profile).

The quality is great in the browser, though not as crisp as Joost when in full-screen, but still better than any other hosted solution (Joost uses P2P architecture). The few people I have shown it to are all converts and itching for it to go live to all. I would advise major brands to try out video advertising on Hulu because it certainly guarantees exposure for your brand and is much more like the sponsorship of soap operas done by P&G decades ago.

Filed under: Industry News, Technology