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Look What Happened to Hulu…
Amanda Moshier | October 22nd, 2008
The economy is in the sh*tter. The mortgage bubble burst. Wall Street lost its shirt and Joe the Plumber watches in horror while his 401k dwindles down to a measly $4.01.
Okay, Joe the Plumber isn’t a real plumber. Turns out he has no license, and he probably doesn’t have a 401k either, but you get the point. Times are tough. People are afraid. And if Hollywood’s historical record of success in times of fear, angst, and war tell us anything, it’s that the best medicine for an empty wallet is a good laugh (or cry).
Could this explain the recent rise in Hulu’s popularity? It could. But I’m more interested in the fact that the negative predictions of many a web pundit regarding Hulu’s viability were wrong.
If you don’t know Hulu, read our blog from January and you’ll find Hulu is the NBC Universal/News. Corp-owned on-demand video portal that launched to a slew of criticism and ne’er-do-well-wishes earlier this year. You’ll also find a prediction that Hulu, with a little hard work, could in fact blow YouTube out of the water.
It just goes to show that predictions are like opinions (everyone’s got _ _ _ ), and sometimes, you just gotta wait-and-see.
Until next time, I leave you with a Hulu-hosted webisode of The Office. Enjoy!
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Tags: economy, Hulu, Joe the Plumber, mortgage bubble, on-demand video, The Office, youtube
Posted in Internet News
It is great to see Hulu’s growth; I, for one, am a fan.
However, in the big picture: who care’s. They are making hardly a dent in Youtube’s traffic. According to compete.com, Hulu has literally 3.6% of Youtube’s traffic in September (2.3 million unique visitors to Youtube’s 62.6 million).
They are going to need to do much, much more to become a true player in the video space.
That is a big discrepancy in traffic!
On the flip side, according to LiveRail, Hulu is running neck-in-neck with YouTube for domestic ad sales – 90 mil vs. 100 mil. But YouTube is projected to double their domestic revenue overseas.
Hulu’s growth over such a short span gives me hope that they will catch up with YouTube’s sales numbers and/or force YouTube to up the quality of their content. And while a profitable site doesn’t necessarily equate to more traffic, I have to think higher profits means Hulu will remain a viable choice for fans of on-demand video.
And the fact that Hulu beat out CNN, MSNBC, and MTV in page views in September makes me curious to see what will happen next!
Looks like the LA Times caught on:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hollyecon29-2008oct29,0,2192604.story
An article on how people are giving up cable for on-demand video services like Hulu.