Mostly Media, Most of the Time

The Five Hiccups of Hulu Plus 

WARNING: This blog post chronicles my “issues” with Hulu Plus. Devotees and employees of this service have been forewarned and are advised to proceed with caution. 

Before beginning my rant, I should lay some foundation. I am an avid online media consumer! I’d happily shout this from the rooftops. I am apart of the growing segment of American television watchers that prefers an Xbox and Wi-fi to satellites and cable television subscriptions.  Whether it’s cost related or pure preference (I’ll never tell!J), I have foregone a cable television subscription for give or take 5 years.

So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’ve been eyeing Hulu Plus for a while. During one of my latest weekend television binges, I was beckoned by the service’s elusive tagline, “More whenever. More whenever. Than ever.” For me, Hulu offered what Netflix did not – current content. Being able to watch my favorite television shows on a full-sized screen without a cable subscription would put Hulu Plus head and shoulders above Netflix. However, that’s not necessarily what Hulu Plus is offering. Although, I’d argue that that’s what they are selling. Here are some other things that I noticed.

1)      Lots of Web-Only Content

If you’re hoping to subscribe to Hulu Plus to watch ‘Project Runway’, re-think this game plan. A Hulu Plus subscription will not allow you to watch all available content on your television screen. You can however watch Project Runway online with a Hulu Plus subscription. Can you figure out how this is different than watching content on mylifetime.com? If you do, tell me!  

2)      Limited Episodes (based on time)

Do you, like me, want to see Raven-Symone all “growed” up on ‘State of Georgia’? Do you want to catch up on old episodes that you didn’t watch when they originally aired? Hulu Plus will only allow you to view the most recent episode of ‘State of Georgia’ on TV, so you’ll have to play catch-up somewhere else.   

3)      No time to buffer

Unlike Netflix, which automatically readjusts your picture when your internet connection slows, Hulu Plus just stops working.       

If you haven’t already guessed by the title of this post and the bulleted list of gripes, Hulu Plus greatly disappointed me. However, I’d be remised if I didn’t highlight Hulu’s bright spots. Hulu Plus offers: excellent picture quality, a wide variety of content (albeit not always on the preferred platform), and offers a portable solution to television watching.

Based on Nielsen’s recent study stating that 89% of Hulu users consume content on computers compared to only 42% of Netflix users, I think I completely get why I fall outside of Hulu Plus’ “sweet spot.”  Ultimately, my distaste for Hulu Plus stems from the fact that I’m an avid media consumer, remember? That was a pretty vague statement. I don’t watch a lot of reality television and still spend the time to involve myself in hour-long dramas, and I LOVE “the movies.” Maybe, in life, you fall into one of two buckets – red or green, and I’ve already fallen into the red. Netflix 4eva.  

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Did you remember to celebrate International Women’s Day yesterday? Well, yesterday, March 8th, was International Women’s Day, and a friend of mine posted a totally captivating, kick-butt (yeah, I said it) post. Although the video has nothing to do with the business of media, I feel compelled to share. 

I love this video of future! According to the video, everything in the future looks like its straight out of Design Within Reach and all surfaces (tables and floors) are white, so they can serve double-duty as projectors for info-graphics. I am a little disappointed in the representation of the newspaper of the future (see 4:12). I’m pretty sure people are reading newspapers in a much more technologically advanced way in the present; i.e., the Ipad.  

Microsoft hasn’t released any official statements, but it seems apparent: the Zune as we know it is over. The Zune is dead, but Zune has just begun. For Microsoft, subtracting the ‘the’ makes all the difference.

Search Zune on any major search engine, and the most prominently placed link will lead you to a portal entitled “Your Entertainment, Everywhere.” Microsoft is well aware that Apple has almost 80% of the handheld music device business. And even after Microsoft relaunched a sleek, re-imagined version of the Zune, the Zune failed to become the much coveted iPod. Maybe it was a case of too little, too late. Whatever happened, Microsoft has cut its losses and re-positioned its Zune speak.

In this quote from a Microsoft representative, the representative highlights the Zune’s future. “We are thrilled by the consumer excitement for Zune across many new platforms, including Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360. Our long-term strategy focuses on the strength of the entire Zune ecosystem across Microsoft platforms.”  

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I read this tweet today, “Time Warner to lose tens of millions if “Two and a Half Men” is finished as a tv series,” and I was completely confused. Somehow, I forgot about the media industry’s tangled web of ownership. So I asked myself, “How does a CBS sitcom affect Time Warner?”

If you were paying attention to the latest faux episode of “Celebrity Behaving Badly” it was Warner Bros. (along with CBS) that made the final decision to fire Charlie for his antics. Warner Bros., of course, is a Time Warner-owned studio. So, there you have it, if the 32 remaining episodes of “Two and Half Men” are not produced, Time Warner stands to lose millions. 

According to inMobi, impressions from North American smart phones have grown exponentially between October 2010 and January 2011. inMobi reported that ad-impressions have grown by 2 billion during this 90-day period. InMobi’s research contributes the uptick in impressions to a ”massive global consumer transition to high-quality smart devices.” Apparently, North America leads this transition with 69% of mobile advertising impressions coming from smart phones versus 36% internationally.

The table above shows global impressions by operating system. As you can see, the Android experienced the fastest growth with a positive percent change of 8.6.

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