See ads only when you pause (Hulu)

In the second quarter of 2019 Hulu plans to introduce new type of their ads called "pause ads". Taking into account that around 40% of users were willing to pay extra for ad-free environment, it is definitely worth it to spend time on new advertising ideas that  might create less uncomfortable experience for viewers. This initiative seems to be extremely exciting according to the vice president of product at Xandr Media, AT&T’s advertising division Matt Van Houten.

“We know you’re going to capture 100% viewability 

when they pause and unpause.” 

Matt Van Houten 

Even though this activity seems plausible for its creators, users have multiple concerns.

"Wait. I often hit Pause, so I can have silence without missing something in order to take a call, have a conversation, or something else." 

Adrienne G.

Summing up comments and multiple reviews, several main issues anticipated by viewers were revealed. They are:

• this type of an ad being added to their ad-free subscriptions;

• in order to eliminate this ad users will have to pay more;

• advertising will be too loud, but quite often people pause for a phone talk or to help a child. Even though it is possible to mute, it presupposes extra time and effort;

• necessity to finish watching 1, 2, or 3 ads before being able to resume.

Fortunately, according to one of the latest articles, final decision was based on user testing and all of the above-mentioned points of view were taken into account. Hulu decided not to play video ads that are usually disturbing and accompanied by loud audio, but to show static branded images. People will never be happy with watching ads, so even in this strategy they found a downside. It is related to inability o pause video in order to be able to study in detail something related to a movie. 

However, we need to think not only about customers experience, but also about efficiency. I strongly doubt the statement about 100% viewability, since while taking break people tend either go away from their computers or be concentrated on another task. While ad just interrupt a video and user cannot have control over its length, it is a higher probability that he or she will watch it till the end. 

Even tough this move might be questionable, it can lead to a necessary experience and generate more efficient solution in the future.

Will youtube break into the streaming business

According to the WSJ Youtube is looking into breaking the streaming video space. It will compete directly with serivces like Netflix, Amazon prime video and Hulu.

Personally I feel like there is not much difference between these type of service. Most of the series and movies are old, and there is a lack of new material. The only place that I see these streaming services differentiting is on the originl content they produce.

So that raises a question, will Youtube just be another streaming service?
The answer is no. While the other providers license older tv series and movies, youtube will focus on new material. This may definetly give Youtube an edge and grab an important size of the pie in its first motnhs.

We should expect to see this new service by 2016, and I am personally looking forward to it.

Hulu Advertising - Breakthrough?

Due to a newfound obsession with reruns of Modern Family and Glee, I have become acquainted with the fascinating 0nline media platform that is Hulu. As a reminder to most of you, birthed in 2007 as a joint venture between News Corp and NBC, Hulu is an attempt at a competitor for Youtube. Although they experienced initial trouble raising advertising revenue in 2008 and 2009, the site has become a dominant advertising platform.

How did Hulu go from noteworthy struggles in 2008-9 (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090330_571175.htm) to kicking the proverbial advertising a*$ today?

What did they do?

From a quick perusing around their site for specifics on their advertising, it is clear that they decided at some point to invest a lot of effort into innovation and for adding value for them and for advertisers themselves.

Hulu created much smaller increments of videos during the shows on the site that are accompanied by Like / Dislike boxes that both attract viewer attention as well as supply a new and valuable metric for advertisers. When crossed with the sign-up information of the user, these likes/dislikes are valuable demo/behavioral info.

Hulu also created free content that can help advertisers use their services: there are case studies on the site.

The last thing that exemplifies the sleak style and technology of Hulu is their gallery and ranking system for this past year's Superbowl Commercials: http://www.hulu.com/adzone2011#50120562

Check it out

Hulu’s New Player: Ad Targeting

Hulu (hulu.com) is a joint venture of Fox, ABC and NBC, initially devised as an alternative to piracy. It offers free streaming video of TV content from the 3 broadcasters, and other studios. The revenue model is supported by advertisements, usually short and few (with a sleek countdown clock, which makes the experience less annoying) Not surprisingly, viewers recall the ads they see on Hulu much better than they remember TV ones.

This week Hulu’s blog (http://blog.hulu.com/2010/05/13/pardon-our-dust/) unveiled the new player improvements, consisting of a number of technical features (such as adaptive bitrate streaming or volume normalization), a slight restyling (mainly consisting on a larger screen) and “ad tailor”, a new system for better targeted advertisement. As discussed in class, this is the ultimate objective of any online advertiser.

Hulu refers to this phenomenon in terms of relevance: every time we watch an ad we’ll be asked “was this ad relevant to you? Answer yes or no with one click, and we'll use the data to try to serve your ads about the products and services most relevant to you.” Occasionally, people will be able to choose which ad to watch, so it will be even more likely to be relevant to their interests.

Hulu represents both a success and a threat for its parent companies: audience has been drawn from both illegal P2P sites, but from broadcast TV as well. In my view, Hulu will charge for premium content in a near future. As an illustrative example, RTL (a German broadcaster), allows viewers to catch up free for recent shows but charges them for older episodes, as well as to view the latest one a couple of days before it’s aired on TV.

The Current State of Online Media Sharing

Online file sharing is a big business. According to a recent Times Online article, an average teenager’s iPod contains 800 illegal music files. Additionally, DrownedinSound.com reported that 95% of music downloads in 2008 were illegal. With its eyes set on all of this lost revenue, the music industry is successfully fighting back, leaving companies and individuals scrambling and looking for new (and still legal) ways to provide and share media, such as music, online.

Just in the past few years, several media streaming providers have popped up, including Hulu for television shows and Pandora for music.

Hulu, a collaborative effort by News Corp and NBC Universal, has seen rapid growth since its inception. With over 370 million streams each month, Hulu has grown into the largest streaming television site on the Web.

Pandora, a music site offers a novel approach to sharing music online. Labeled as a radio station, Pandora allows its users to create customized radio stations by entering their favorite artists into an engine, which then builds a playlist. While artists don’t seem to make money from the Site, Pandora does by referring listeners to iTunes to purchase music heard on the Site. Other major competitors in this space include Imeem and Last.fm.

As internet properties continue to launch media streaming sites, the industry will need to react. So the questions will remain – how long will these sites be viable, how will these sites impact the music and television industries and will new laws be enacted to stop this type of online streaming?

Hulu Growth - New Deal With Disney

Initially formed as a joint venture between NBC Universal and FOX, Hulu is a website that offers free, ad-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies. It primarily offered TV shows from FOX and NBC, subsidiary cable channels, and full-length movies. Hulu is an incredibly popular website. According to Quantcast.com, Hulu receives 17 million visits per month globally.

However, Hulu has had many doubtful critics since its debut. Although it has received universal recognition as an outstanding product, critics doubted the feasibility of Hulu's business model for a number of reasons: Hulu was too dependant on a small number of content providers, it incurred most of the costs of streaming videos while its partners take most of the revenue, and its content partners were also its primary shareholders (creating a potential conflict of interest).

Hulu's partners refuse to give up exclusive online rights, because they do not want to give up control and limit their options. They also don't want Hulu to become too powerful. Currently Hulu gets only 20-30% of the revenue it generates and its partners would not want that to change.

Another criticism targeted Hulu's operational strategy. The method in which Hulu uploaded videos put the company at a significant disadvantage compared to one of its main competitors, YouTube. By allowing anyone to upload videos, YouTube had the advantage of being current. Any popular video could be seen on YouTube well before it was available on Hulu.

In an effort to quell these fears, Hulu has recently signed a new content sharing deal with Disney. According to WSJ online (see link below), Disney is "ceding some control over the online distribution of its ABC television and other programming in exchange for an equity stake." This will make Hulu the first outside site to stream ABC videos. This news is likely to be unsettling for Hulu's main competitors: Apple (iTunes), Google (YouTube), and CBS (TV.com), particularly Apple who sells video content online.

Will this new deal improve Hulu's sustainability? Possibly. However, Hulu must also address the issue of rising costs. As demand increases for high definition video, it will become more expensive to provide videos. Higher quality videos require more data, more data requires greater bandwidth capacity, and greater bandwidth capacity costs money. Furthermore, Disney now has a large stake in Hulu's revenues. Hulu can improve popularity by increasing content, but at some point it must address its future profitability.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124110275139073305.html

Social Media Detractors Continue to Sound Off

Even as social media companies like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube continue to amass users, there continues to be no dearth of critics who doubt the value and sustainability of a service that to-date appears to have little revenue-generating capacity. Since simply railing against the service as being a meaningless social-contact medium for vapid youths hasn’t stopped the phenomenon, it appears that the scientific community is now weighing in.

Much like Hulu claims to want to rot your brain into a cottage-cheese like mush, to be scooped out with a melon-baller and gobbled up (Hulu, an evil plot to destroy the world), social networking sites, according to Oxford University neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, may be contributing to the infantilization of the brain. She worries that “these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.”

Her argument is that if the young brain is exposed from the outset to a world of fast action and reaction, such rapid interchange might accustom the brain to operate over such timescales. When in the real world such responses are not immediately forthcoming, perhaps we will see such behaviors and call them attention deficit disorder.

Of course, without a scientific report to back up her claims, the video game and social networking communities are content to ignore the claims.