So, Hulu is here, well, sort of. The NBC (GE)/News Corp (NWS). joint venture and YouTube (GOOG) killer went live with a closed beta.
One thing Hulu will do, indeed, is shake up video and at least challenge YouTube’s grip on the video marketplace because content is king and will always be king and UGC and UPC (pirated) won’t really make the online video advertising business what it can be.
But, speaking of advertising, one thing that is clear is that Hulu will be one of the bigger double-edged swords to inflict traditional media: if Hulu is successful - and it very might well be - then it will probably siphon away ad revenue from TV advertising and the revenues thereof won’t be all that incremental.
I have alluded previously to how Conde Nast’s Men’s Vogue ended forcing some advertisers (allegedly) to buy print ads if they wanted to advertise on Men.Style.com as early as 2004… and I think ultimately, if Hulu is a success, then many of the media sellers at TV companies will realize how just how marketers will favor targeted advertising via the Web.
Time will tell… but in this vein, Hulu might be a much greater driving force to shift TV ads to the Web, far more than Google’s YouTube… because YouTube is starting from zero and Google’s advertisers are not exactly branding-oriented marketers but rather small and medium sized performance oriented ones.
Of course, if this happens, then expect those same branded advertisers to look to YouTube, because rumor has it that marketers follow users, and right now, users are on YouTube (GooTube commands 50% + market share).
Which takes me to the next point: I don’t get why Hulu is so stressing the $100M funding because this gives it a very big company vibe to media right off the bat, which leads to cynicism, frankly. Moreover, it puts a lot of pressure on the executives to deliver the goods… and that is not easy, for other Big Hairy Ambitious Goals by traditional media have historically flopped… but we’ll get the brains at News Corp. and NBC the benefit of the doubt.
Lastly, another thing I don’t get is the closed beta. I think Hulu has been riding a lot of hulu-hype of late and they should have leveraged this opportunity to go open, fully, right now. What I fear is that the buzz will wear off for one reason and one reason only:
In WatchMojo.com’s partnerships with the big destination sites like YouTube et al., we’ve seen one thing become more important than content itself, and that is the frequency the content is uploaded.
I don’t doubt that the content partners in Hulu have been generous for the launch… but unless they remain committed to it and have a long term view (let’s face it, the revenues from Hulu in general and online video in general) won’t be Googlesque until 2008, maybe 2009, then the content won’t be fresh and users will go to where it is…
And by then, Hulu’s premium content will have piqued the interest of traditional marketers and they’ll follow the users, to places like YouTube.
All in all, a great day for online video. Props to News Corp. and NBC for pulling this off, despite what the haters shall say.
