Hulu VS. YouTube

Jose Vela
Justin Wegner
Daniel Villarreal



1. The show we chose to watch on hulu.com was The Office. The latest episode titled "Business Trip" was available so we gave it a shot. Before the show began, there was an advertisement saying that this particular replay was sponsored by The American Red Cross. Strangely enough, for this particular show, at the points where there would be advertisements, it would skip them and go right back to the episode. The counter that says "This show will resume in __ seconds" would zip by really quick and would only show a quick second of the ad even though it said the episode would resume in as long as 45 seconds. Scrolling to the bottom of the page, one is overwhelmed by the content offered on the site including links to other episodes of The Office, popular short clips from the show, show created webisodes that feature cast members from actual show that serve to supplement the core material, user ratings on the show and discussions. Also there are plenty of viewing options such as enlarging the screen, embedding the video into a blog, lighting and choices for the resolution you want to watch it in. Lots of good stuff.




2. It was really hard for us to find a full length episode of anything on YouTube. Instead, you can find episodes of shows like Grey's Anatomy in segments marked "Season __, Episode __, Part 1 or __" for example. We posted a first segment of an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Not to mention the video is usually of poor quality and its not even straight from YouTube most of the time. Sometimes it will even tell you "originally found on ____". The only real viewing option you get with YouTube is the choice of seeing it in full screen, which really doesn't help the quality.

3. Both sites are great in their own right. YouTube is known for hosting tons of user based content, and Hulu.com is a great source for full length episodes and clips of popular TV shows. YouTube's reform is definitely a must if they're going to keep up with the loads of high quality, first party content hosted by Hulu. YouTube was founded on the idea of hosting user created content so it doesn't need to change in that respect, but if people want TV shows and movies on the web, YouTube needs to do something to make sure they can compete if they plan on longevity.