Will the internet kill TV? Perhaps as we know it.
The joint online venture between NBC and Fox by visionary CEO Jason Kilar, formerly of Amazon.com, has created a working example of how the world will watch online programing in the near future.
Enter hulu.com. A free online way to view some of your favorite NBC and Fox programs like The Simpsons, 30 Rock, Family Guy, and Saturday Night Live. There are movies as well, some served up as favorite snippets and others as feature-length. The list is short, but already the reviews are favorable. In the future, look to have other networks and media conglomerates involved.
Initially, the critics balked at the venture. But the easy interface and the quality streaming have won them over. Kilar recrutied his friend Eric Feng, a former engineer at Microsoft to head up the programming. Right at launch, the experience is smooth and easy to use. You can view it in the default frame or an acceptable full-screen view. Sure, the full screen view isn’t as crisp and clean as viewing a conventional TV delivery, but can you cut your own clips and email them or embed them into a MySpace profile? They’ve added a lot of fun features to give users control over sharing their favorite clips in many popular formats.
I’ve always been meaning to catch up on Arrested Development. I only had seen 2 random episodes in the past and loved it. I propped my laptop next to my couch, launched the window full screen and addictively watched a marathon first 9 episodes. I’m sure TV execs dream of that kind of undivided viewer attention.
It’s free to the user. No need to even register. How do they pay for this? It’s ad-supported. But it’s so limited, only a total of three 30-second spots integrated into the episode. Even though you can scrub (scan back and forth) through the episode, you cannot fast forward past a commercial. There’s even a handy timer above the ad so you know exactly how much time you’ve got to run up and get a drink. Miss some of the episode when you get back? No problem, just scan back to the little dot on the bar that shows where the commercial was.
The content is now relatively exclusive as well. They’ve since pulled all their episodes from competitors like iTunes.
So far, I’m hooked. It’s a wonderful online treat for catching up on shows when I sit down and wonder “gee, I wish something good was on.” The future of online television has arrived.
This is cool. But in the short run, I will take my SlingBox over this limited offering. First VCRs and then TIVO gave us the ability to timeshift. Now technologies like this are trying to give us both timeshift and placeshift. Really, the killer app for accomplishing both of these shifts is a SlingBox connected to a DVR. I am in California waiting for my co-workers to arrive, but just watched Survivor with my wife on my laptop through my SlingBox. Aint life grand?
I hope something kills TV as we know it. This “reality” phase is getting old.
NBC was offering a more primitive version of Hulu earlier this year at NBC.com. Hulu is much more robust and the interface is much easier to operate. Walt Mossburg of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote about Hulu and its wonderful design. And who doesn’t love a little Fantasy Island?