December 4th, 2007
Hulu, News Corp, and the Web (2.0?)
I know this is behind the game, and that the bleeding edge of blog
reviews has moved well beyond online streaming service Hulu (even
though it’s not yet out to the public). But I received my beta invite
last week and have had all this time to play around with it.
My initial thoughts: none.
No, not one initial thought. Hulu doesn’t work in the UK. They don’t
tell you: “Hey, if you live in the UK, you will be able to access and
begin your Hulu experience, but when you choose a show to stream,
you’ll be disappointed. Have a nice day.” You have to jump through all
the Beta hoops to get there first.
Now, I know I should have known better, being a generally web-savvy
chap. But after a few pre-reviews of the Hulu service, I decided not to
read any more blogs about it until after I’d tried it out myself. I
knew not to expect too much, after reading the last review over at Between the Lines , but I wanted my own experience.
Since then, I’ve found dozens of blogs about how bad it is that Hulu doesn’t work in Europe
. Aside from whingeing about the lack of support, I can’t really think
of anything more to write about Hulu (apart from its ridiculous,
trying-too-hard-for-the-Web-2.0-market name).
But, doesn’t this kind of go against point of the web? The idea that
we can make connections, share content, stream and connect?
The principle of the internet is broken by this experiment, and I
don’t think a platform intended to be a YouTube killer should ever have
been trialled in a geographically-limited network. Sure, I understand
private Betas, but why limit this to the States? I don’t think News Corp really gets the Web 2.0 thing. In fact, I wonder if they really get the internet?
It reminds me of LaunchCast (now Yahoo Music). When I first launched
the player, all the content was free, and there was absolutely loads of
it. I was thrilled! Over months, however, content became harder to find
due to advertisement interruptions and restrictions on skipping tracks. Suddenly, Launch re-directed to Yahoo, and I could no longer
skip any content without upgrading to a premium service which hadn’t
existed before. Then, when I moved to Britain, all the content was
unavailable apart from a limited selection which I can only presume was
intended for a British audience. (Don’t think my mates here would
have agreed in a focus group!)
I haven’t used a yahoo service since. No, seriously, I haven’t used
Yahoo. As soon as Konfabulator was purchased by Yahoo, I uninstalled
it. I was all set to set up a Flickr account, when I found out it was
Yahoo. (I might go back on that one, once I get a decent digital
camera.)
This wasn’t really a boycott so much as a pre-emptive decision. I
know that as soon as Yahoo gets a hold of a service, its
user-friendliness will dissolve into advertisements and ‘premium
services’ (a contradiction in terms!) This is what Hulu reminds me of.
An attempt at grabbing a market instead of a well-thought-out startup
trying to sell a genuinely good service and make a profit on its
quality.
What is Web 2.0? Hulu doesn’t know, and it makes me think that News
Corp hasn’t really got its head round it at all. I shudder to think what’s going to happen with LinkedIn.
-Zach (http://www.zachbeauvais.com)
