MagneticMediaFed

Whomever or whoever? Enjoy this awesome clip from perhaps my favorite episode of The Office ever, “Money,” courtesy of Hulu.

Living in something of a television black-hole with almost obscene amounts of free-time, I’ve frequently found myself over at the NBC/FOX video-joint Hulu, which just went public a few weeks back. As far as sanctioned video is concerned, there might not be a better destination online (though I will also add that the revamped Daily Show website is wholly usable). So far I’ve re-watched the first half of this season’s episodes of The Office, more than a few 30 Rocks, The Jerk, The Three Amigos and (strangely?) Dude, Where’s My Car. The experience, which is where any video-based website lives and dies, is so good I almost want to classify it as “feel-good.” There’s something almost novel about the notion of getting content that for so long has been on the fringes of legality now packaged in a super-slick wrapper sanctioned by all of the powers that be (including our once-short-shrifted writers). More after the jump…

Hulu works because of three crucial components:

1. There’s no digging. What you see is what you get. What always drives me batty about the network’s websites is that the video always seemed to be hidden behind a half-dozen click-throughs and you were never really sure if what you were getting was scenes or the whole episode. Hulu isn’t like that. If you click Alphabetical (under either TV or Movies) you get a page with literally everything they have. Sure, there are the typical web 2.0 “user favorites” and “highest ranked” and if that’s your game, then bully for you. Me? I want it all laid out right in front of me (especially since their current archive isn’t big enough to necessitate searches).
2. The commercials are unobtrusive. You don’t have to watch an ad before a television-episode plays, only a “brought to you by…” slate. Then over the 22 minutes you might have to watch 2, 30-second spots. Hardly a tall order. Better still, when watching a movie you have the option of having to watch a 30-second commercial every fifteen or so minutes OR you can watch a 3-minute trailer before the movie plays and then watch it uninterrupted.
3. Remixes. Ever send someone a YouTube video and say, “Just scroll to 4:23″? Hulu actually let’s you pick the IN and OUT points for embedded video, and will even let you embed an entire episode. How kind.

I’m not saying this is going to cause any sort of seismic shift in web video distribution, but I love the model. I love it because it is an interface I can ignore.

Update: The Dana Carvey Show is on Hulu also! That, as they say, is boss.

Tags: 30 Rock, FOX, Hulu, NBC, The Office, user-friendly, web-video

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 11:33 pm and is filed under Reviews, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.