Will Hulu finally make me buy an Xbox?

26 March 2008 | Culture, Internet, Marketing, Media, TV & Movies | Comments

I’m digging Hulu a lot: great interface, terrific content, and a compelling advertiser proposition that foregrounds the exchange between a viewer’s time and the advertiser.

For example, take a look at this screenshot of the offer that runs before the “Firefly” pilot, which is quietly running in the background as I write this post:

(Click the image to expand.) 

Hulu offers me a choice of how I want to view the video: either with normal commercial interruptions or without breaks after watching the trailer for “Hellboy 2″– a movie I will probably see anyway. What a deal!

The downside? Even though I have a large monitor in my office, it’s just not the same as watching this on my larger screen in the living room while sitting on my couch. The media extenders that come with the Xbox 360 will do this for me, although I suspect that the Hulu stream will pixellate a lot as it scales up from my PC to the TV.

I’m not a gamer, but the ability to watch Hulu-streamed episodes of “30 Rock” (or whatever) for free, on demand and on my TV it quite enticing.

We’re still not quite at anything other than a torturous, improvised sort of convergence, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.