YouTube versus Hulu

YouTube has obviously changed since it's start. Advertisements became a necessary evil when VEVO went into a joint venture with YouTube.


I watched a Rihanna video, as it was featured on YouTube's homepage (as part of a VEVO artist). I was confused by this because Rihanna is part of Def Jam Records, which is not one of the labels hosted by VEVO. I Wikipedia'd VEVO to see if I could find out more.


I didn't find any information about Def Jam, but funnily enough VEVO is described as the "Hulu for music videos." Perhaps that's why this blog post was assigned? VEVO's goal is to attract higher end advertisements and because of this they censor the videos they host to make them acceptable for places like McDonald's (as they say). "The site went live on December 8, 2009, and that same month became the number one most visited music site in the US, overtaking MySpace Music."...Pretty amazing.


I regularly use Hulu and have for awhile so I've also noticed it's changes over time. If I remember right, in the beginning Hulu simply had a set number of ads that you had no choice but to watch. Nowadays, you are able to let Hulu know if the ad is relevant to you (pictured below).

Hulu then responds with "Thanks! We'll use your input to improve your ad experience," putting a positive spin on something that can sometimes be obnoxious. I checked out an episode of Modern Family for this blog post and no surprises came up, but for videos I've watched in the past, you are sometimes given the option to watch a 2-ish minute ad then watch your video ad-free OR you can watch your video with regular ad breaks. You are sometimes also able to choose which ad you'd like to watch. Hulu has also added HuluPlus in the recent past. You can pay a fixed fee each month to watch as many of the HuluPlus videos that you want! Can you say Netflix? 


It seems that all music and video mediums are feeding off of each other these days. You can easily find similarities between any host, which - if nothing else - often makes for a simpler viewing experience. The ads can be annoying, but we've all got to make a buck these days.