NBC and Universal Present Hulu

1 November 07

NBC’s and Universal’s project Hulu is now online and running in private beta as of October 28, 2007. You can sign up for an invite on their website if you haven’t already…my guess is that people have been signing up since late August, so be prepared for waiting in line for an invitation to be sent via email.

What is Hulu?*

For those of you who haven’t heard of Hulu, it’s an online video service where you can view tv shows and movies and whatever else they have to offer. So I guess it allows you to be better kept up-to-date on your fave NBC shows (i.e. Heroes, Prison Break, The Office). Not only can you view tv show content, you can also embed them on your own personal site.

How Much Does it Cost?

I was wondering this myself when I first heard of Hulu. They should be a little cheaper to use than iTunes since that is who they are competing with. Well, Hulu is ad-supported making it free to use. Their are terms that you must meet in order to use the service such as being 13 years old or older, using it solely for personal entertainment purposes, and so on and so forth…but yes, right now it’s FREE.

Any Downsides?

I haven’t personally used the service yet, as I am still waiting in line for my invitation, but I’ve read numerous complaints about Hulu’s services not being able to work outside the US. There are more complaints than praises. Many people say they are happier to pay for iTunes videos than use Hulu.

Yes, this service is not available outside of the US.

No, you cannot view Hulu content on a portable media player such as an iPod or Zune.

Yes, there are forced commercial ads.

Yes, you can only watch content within a browser.

Those are a few limitations the service has that I picked up from the comments left on the Hulu blog. With so many dissatisfied users, NBC must have second thoughts on leaving the Apple iTunes scene to start Hulu. So, the question is will NBC improve their service? Will they return and reconcile with Apple? What’s next?

Any reader’s actually used the service? I cannot give any personal input on Hulu as I have not reviewed the product yet, so feel free to add your two sense.

*Source: Hulu.com

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