The New York Times does a curtain-raiser on today’s public beta launch of Hulu, the online video service created for NBC and Fox.
CEO Jason Kilar, left, formerly of Amazon, cites the game plan of using only professional programming from a variety of big media players. Hulu’s dance is to present the content, not make it.
“We don’t have to worry about showing TV schedules or letting fans get to know the actors,” he told the Times. “All we have to worry about is the video.”
The Times notes that viewers will find a few distracting elements:
Hulu might prove most attractive to advertisers, since the videos on Hulu are chock-full of promotional opportunities. Messages for companies like Cisco and General Motors remain above the video player during each program. Hulu is also using overlays, promotional graphics that roam over the bottom of the screen during a show. (YouTube is also experimenting with this ad format). Hulu is, however, cutting by half the length of traditional commercial breaks during its videos.
Hulu is another of those zippy meaningless names, for which the project has taken considerable heat. Various wags have pronounced it Clown Co. — site unseen.
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