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March 10, 2008

It’s Official: Hulu Opens Up on Wednesday

Mark Hendrickson

24 comments »

No one can say they didn’t see this one coming: Hulu will finally open up to the public this week, on Wednesday to be precise and yes, it’s official.

The company’s been in private beta for 4.5 months. If you haven’t managed to snag one of the many invitations floating around, you’re probably thinking “big deal”. But as I expressed in my initial review, Hulu’s a remarkable web service despite its numerous shortcomings (no downloads, a limited collection of shows and movies, and no international access to name a few).

Hulu is also announcing the addition of new content from Warner Brothers Television Group, Lionsgate, NBA, NHL and twenty other content providers (including the Onion News Network!).

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Internet: Hulu abre sus puertas definitivamente - Bitelia

    March 11th, 2008 at 9:42 am

  2. FuzzLinks » It’s Official: Hulu Opens Up on Wednesday March 12, 2008

    March 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

Comments

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  1. Jon

    March 10th, 2008 at 9:19 pm

    I would love to join but “no international access” when there are plenty others who do offer international access means they have lost one potential visitor. As I am not the only person living “internationally”, you can multiply this a million fold easily… lots of $$$ is being left on the table due to lack of foresight that not the entire world lives in North America. This isn’t all Hulu’s fault, international distributors, contracts etc dealing with production have got to join the “net age” before they are left in the same plight as the music industry. On the bright side, this is great indirect advertising for youtube!

    Jon
    http://woodmarvels.com - Create Unique Memories

  2. leila

    March 10th, 2008 at 9:39 pm

    I’m generally a fan, but a little dismayed that the site isn’t functioning that well right now.

  3. John S.

    March 10th, 2008 at 9:47 pm

    I’m a fan and I hope they’re ready to scale. I’m half way through Arrested Development and I don’t want to have trouble with the site this week. I’m glad to see they’re adding more content providers too.

  4. Richard K

    March 10th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

    I just wish the pre-rolling Cisco ads weren’t so long!
    INQdrop

  5. Jeff

    March 10th, 2008 at 10:40 pm

    Hulu is a great site and I hope they keep allowing us to embed their content.
    I just started my site http://www.thefirstseason.com and I enjoy all the great TV Show that I can add to my content.

    Thanks Hulu

  6. Forumistan

    March 10th, 2008 at 11:51 pm

    hulu is very nice. Thanks for the info.

  7. kuldeep

    March 11th, 2008 at 12:18 am

    When its launching outside of US? Are planning for it?

  8. Ryan Merket

    March 11th, 2008 at 12:50 am

    No CBS = No watch.

  9. CBS

    March 11th, 2008 at 4:09 am

    Go to Fancast by Comcast to view everything on Hulu and to catch CBS content too!

  10. Matt

    March 11th, 2008 at 4:10 am

    yeah, hulu is great for catching up on shows or snl clips. Much much better than the networks own sites. It’ll be cool when they add sports and more films to hulu… Now they need a $50 hulu streaming box to hook up to the tv, so my parents and grandma could get into the hulu action. I have my laptop hooked up the the tv. It’s also possible that you could use a XBOX360, Wii or PS3 to access hulu in the future.

  11. ben

    March 11th, 2008 at 6:33 am

    site not working for me - can they REALLY handle the volume?

    http://screencast.com/t/OR1zxr7hpK

  12. Baal Manche

    March 11th, 2008 at 6:56 am

    I watch videos from hulu every now and then. I have a linux (ubuntu 7.10) machine, and I have some problems, maybe its just me.

    First, when I go fullscreen, the menus do not respond well. If I want to pause, I have to put my mouse over the pause button for about 15seconds before it responds. Same with slider, volume, and regular screen options.

    Second, after every breakpoints (I think its the point where ads appear during tv broadcast), the fullscreen disapppears and goes normal screen.

    Third, its not an occasional problem, but when I watch more than 5 videos back to back, the computer hangs. I am guessing its hulu’s problem, because I have no problem with youtube or other video sites.

  13. Josh

    March 11th, 2008 at 8:07 am

    Hey content providers, just provide full shows and it will be a success. Nobody wants to wait till 2am to watch shows on the TV as we are sleeeeeping!

    Otherwise, i’ve got no other beef with Hulu.

  14. Torley

    March 11th, 2008 at 8:22 am

    I wonder what the relationship between Hulu.com and OPENHulu.com is? A few casual searches didn’t totally clear it up for me.

    When I was @ Hulu, I liked the convenience, didn’t find the video quality to be stellar, and was surprised at how they didn’t have more episodes of Heroes.

    @ben: Nice spontaneous use of screencasting! I’m a big fan of the “I’ll simply show you what it looks like for me” approach. :)

  15. Lynda Botez

    March 11th, 2008 at 8:24 am

    who is doing the streaming?

    I’ve been beta testing HULU for a few weeks now; this site is just simply amazing, that is all I can say.

    There is wonderful content, excellent quality, and one you start using it you will get hooked.

    Watching shows I never would have been able to see before, it’s just simply stunning.

    this will be a great hit if they can handle the bandwith.

    Wonder if Akamai is involved..

  16. sadfasdf

    March 11th, 2008 at 8:58 am

    I think you should look at this site http://www.sdbear.net

  17. Tammy

    March 11th, 2008 at 8:59 am

    I was very excited about this site when I first heard about it during the wind down of Stage 6. However I live in Canada, which blocks my access to watch shows that are filmed in Canada and the many shows which have Canadian actors.

    So just to clairfy from the 1st comment by Jon “not the entire world lives in North America”. Not all of North America can watch either! And believe me its even more frustrating when you live 40 minutes from the border and still can’t watch!

  18. xavierv

    March 11th, 2008 at 10:13 am

    Hulu is mostly a bunch of 1:30 video clips. But when you land on a full-length movie or series, then it becomes good.

    Let’s see what happens now

  19. JB

    March 11th, 2008 at 10:53 am

    Cant wait to try it out

  20. WMMike

    March 11th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

    Looks great … let’s see what YouTube says tomorrow!

  21. Jon

    March 11th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

    So I won’t have to use http://StreamingTVEpisodes.com to watch HULU any more?

    Cool.

  22. Marco Lopez

    March 12th, 2008 at 6:37 pm

    It’s a shame americans launch a website only avaliable to them, youtube probabily will become a monopoly as a video social network comunity, and other competitors like hulu.com will never reach the audience level youtube has because of this feature to deny this service to other citizens in the world.

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