Good shows, good picture quality, a price of "free" - it seems as if there's little not to like about Hulu. The video-sharing site has yet to truly catch on, however, as fresh traffic data puts it far, far below the industry's leader.
Hulu and YouTube may not directly compete - good luck finding full episodes of anything on the latter - but they're at least operating in the same ballpark. So Hitwise's Heather Hopkins reports, "Hulu is still in its infancy and last week, YouTube attracted nearly 300 times more traffic than Hulu.com."
Statistics from Compete make things look less disastrous for the newcomer, yet a huge gap remains.
It's not time for NBC and Fox to give up on Hulu, though. As the site adds movies and programs ("The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" joined in yesterday), more and more pre-existing fans of that content are likely to check it out. Besides, there's a necessary period of audience-building for every new site, regardless of what it offers.
We'll try to see where Hulu stands when it's had a full six or twelve months to establish a following.
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Comments
NBC missing the boat
If NBC wants to get Hulu rolling, they need to get all of the Saturday Night Live Episodes up there, better yet, break them up into the skits.
Make them search engine friendly, and people will beat a path to their door. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but the concept is there.
Hulu is on their way to getting content online that people want to see. Between NBC and Fox, there is a treasure trove of media that people would love to watch.
They have the Simpson's and Family Guy. Those are both shows with strong online viewership. They have SEF URL's.
Looks to me like if they keep pushing that Hulu will be a winner.
Vi Wickam
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I agree with Doug, too soon
I agree with Doug, too soon to call the game over. If I went up to 10 people on the street and ask them if they knew what Hulu was the large majority would not. It's a great service, and even if it never joins the ranks of Youtube I still think it will be looked at as a game changer when we look back, after the lines have been removed between TV and internet video.
Go Hulu.
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