It's hard to discuss online video for very long without bringing up Hulu. Hulu is a massively popular video-on-demand website, a joint venture of NBC Universal and Fox Entertainment Group. Because of the range of free content it carries, the clean design and the solid features of the site, we've found ourselves turning to Hulu to get our viewing fix time and again.
It's not that Hulu carries a bevy of content that can't be found anywhere else. Indeed, you can find many of its TV episodes on the websites of the individual networks. But Hulu packs the content from all those networks onto one sleek site, making it easy for viewers to find and watch their favorites.
Finding a TV show on Hulu is a snap with their auto-search feature, and what is particularly nice is that even if they don't have the show -- say, you searched for Lost (ABC) or The Wire (HBO) -- Hulu has links to the currently available legal videos at the websites of ABC and HBO. It really is phenomenally easy to find safe, legal content thanks to efforts like these.
But thanks to the many content partners that Fox and NBC have signed on--more than 130 at last count--you'll often be able to find what you're in the mood for directly at the Hulu site.
And that's good, because Hulu has a solid video player that has plenty of features but doesn't crowd up the available space.
In fact, you have to experience Hulu's minimalist design to appreciate how it enhances the browsing and viewing experience. Around the text, Hulu makes ample use of white space to ensure that the layout feels light and uncrowded. Click on the picture on the right to take a closer look at the page for one of its television shows.
Here we hovered the mouse over one of the listed episodes to get more information about it. If all of that detail were presented on the screen for each episode, it would be crammed onto the page and require much more scrolling and reading to find what you want. As it is, your eye can scan for discrete objects and text easily.
But when it comes to the video player itself, you want to be able to focus on the action. So Hulu uses a band of dark grey across the screen area, and you have the option to turn everything on the page except the video itself (and a tiny banner ad) dark with one click.
It's also a simple matter to change resolution from the standard 360p resolution (which isn't bad) to the higher 480p and back. One click while you're watching changes quality with barely a hiccup in playback. Similarly, going to full screen or a pop-up window is no sweat. It's that kind of simple convenience that makes Hulu so easy for a viewer to enjoy.
And Hulu has made it very straightforward to share that experience with others. Within the web player, viewers can share whole episodes or even custom clips with just a few clicks. If at any time you want to share what you're watching, you can move the mouse to the Embed or Share icons that appear to the left of the video.
Embedding gives you the HTML code that you can use to post directly to your blog or other webpage.
Sharing will give you a set of options: you can send it via email, post it to your social network, or send it to your friends on the Hulu social network.
Either way, you can decide whether to share the whole video you're watching or just point out a particular section or scene that caught your fancy.
Then, when you're done sending it out, you can return to the video right from where you left off. The whole process is that easy and convenient.
And as if that weren't enough ways to share, you can also embed a Hulu widget on your homepage or website without much difficulty, displaying a set of videos of your choice. Depending on what you want the widget to do, it can either direct you to watch the episode at the Hulu site with one click or play a miniature version of the episode within the widget.
So it's not surprising that Hulu has such a strong following--lots of users who stay on the site for extended periods of time. It's legal, it's high-quality, and it's supremely user-friendly. And that's exactly the kind of model we equally hope and expect to succeed.
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