Hulu - Plus or Minus?

With the advent of the iPad / iPhone 4 came the excuse the Hulu has been waiting for to charge for content that it had claimed would be free.

You know, Hulu.com, the website with the banner at the top of the page that says "Watch your favorites. Anytime. For free." Here's an example from today, August 13, 2010, several weeks after Hulu Plus was launched:

Except, now that we have Hulu Plus, your favorites aren't available at anytime for free.

I was overseas while this happened (in other words, in the vast swathes of the world where no one, not even US citizens, can watch their favorites, anytime, for free) so it wasn't until this week that I had a chance to explore Hulu's approach to its three-part slogan.

The company put up a blog post that set off warning bells in the first few paragraphs with terms like:

Hulu Plus is a new, revolutionary ad-supported subscription product that is incremental and complementary to the existing Hulu service.

Follow that? Here's a breakdown of the wording

On first blush, it's ad-supported, just like Hulu is. So far so good. I might be able to tolerate an ad or two, but not the 10-15 that seem to be popping up in each episode (as Hulu execs keep experimenting with odd pre-roll vs interstitial ad models every few weeks).

What's revolutionary about it, though? Apparently the revolution is that Hulu Plus is a PAID subscription service that REQUIRES one to watch advertisements.

Wait, so I get to pay to watch ads?

Yes, apparently so. That must be the complementary part of Hulu Plus: both serve ads, possibly some of the exact same ads.

So what's the incremental way Hulu is enticing the average Hulu viewer to pay for the subscription?  Show them a past episode, then yank it.

Seriously, a committee on bad marketing couldn't make this stuff up. On second thought maybe only a committee could.

Here's an example of what you see if you try to watch a video that's been yanked back into the dark recesses of Hulu Plus. This example is courtesy of Safari crashing a few days after I'd watched an episode that was free (just not anytime) and then restoring all the windows after the crash.

The Hulu Plus blog advocates the reasoning behind all of this ad-supported revolutionary approach to paying to watch advertisements is because of all the devices you'll get to watch those ads on: the iPhone 4, iPad, set-top boxes, Macs, PCs, etc.

Except, on July 29, 2010, a month after the blog post, the iPhone 4 upgraders were upset that they weren't able to view these ads on the iPhone 4. Says one commenter (unaltered):

I upgraded to a Iphone because of Hulu plus. I’m disappointed in hulu for not letting my use the service after it was announced. I’m probally now going to return the Iphone 4 and go back to my 3GS and purchase slingbox and watch for free each month off my dvr and direct tv. Better do something quick our your going to loose me for good $120 a year . . . . 

On second thought, maybe this is a brilliant scheme, undercutting the SlingBox concept of free viewing of these same episodes from television or your DVR.

So, please, someone inform the committee that the chance to pay-per-view-advertisements is brilliant, but they're underselling it.

Systems Integration for the rest of us

Preparing to attend a show for systems integrators in Las Vegas this week, I spent part of today covering Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote address for StreamingMedia.com.

Read the details on iPhone 4 and my take on Apple's attempt to outgoogle Google with iAd and HTML5 lip service on the streaminedia.com site, but pause first to reflect on these excerpted comments that Jobs made. . . .


"Apple is not just a technology company," said Jobs. "It's the marriage of technology and the humanities that distinguishes Apple."

Echoing sentiment I've heard from Sling's CTO Bhupen Shah, who reminded me years ago that the ease-of-use for compelling products is all about the hardware and software working seamlessly together, Jobs drove the point home using the example of the new iPhone's second camera.

"On iPhone 4, it's not just a front facing camera: it's a front facing camera and 18 months' worth of work to come up with software that you'll never even notice when you want to place a video call," Jobs said.

"It's a complete solution so all of us don't have to be system integrators."



iPhoned

And another thing . . . Adobe and Apple iPad HTML5 spat heats up

So the Adobe / Apple spat is heating up, now that one of Adobe's tech evangelists has responded to Apple's inclusion of "anti-Flash" language in its iPhone software version 4.0 licensing agreement.

Lee Bigelow posted what is best described as a rant against the license restrictions, which say, in part:

"Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs. (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."

One paragraph sums up Bigelow's feelings, as he goes for the jugular in questioning why any programmer would support the iPad / iPhone ecosystem with its HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript-only implementations, requiring content to be coded only in C language derivations:

I am positive that there are a large number of Apple employees that strongly disagree with this latest move. Any real developer would not in good conscience be able to support this. The trouble is that we will never hear their discontent because Apple employees are forbidden from blogging, posting to social networks, or other things that we at companies with an open culture take for granted.

Except, after posting the blog, Brimelow was forced to redact a line. And not in the typical way that bloggers do it, with a strikethrough, but fully remove the line.

The original post read:

What is clear is that Apple has timed this purposely to hurt sales of CS5. . . . 

The new post reads:

[Sentence regarding Apple's intentions redacted at request from Adobe]. This has nothing to do whatsoever with bringing the Flash player to Apple’s devices. That is a separate discussion entirely. What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. 


Later, Bigelow does use a strike-through to redact the line that says he's speaking in his official Adobe capacity.

Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment as Speaking purely for myself, I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.


Open culture proponents meet crisis management public relations and investor relations practitioners. Ugh.

Flash on a Mac: Memory Hog?

Despite many entreaties to believe that the Emporer does, indeed, have on clothes, I can't help but noticing this type of occurrence happens more frequently these days:

Safari takes up 15.7% of the CPU core while Flash Player takes up 85.7% of the CPU core?

If it weren't for a 2-core processor, the warring coupling of Safari and Flash wouldn't be able to dwell in the same silicon home together.

OtterBox Commuter and Commuter TL comparison

A few weeks ago, we reviewed the OtterBox Commuter TL for iPhone (3G or 3GS), comparing it favorably to the OtterBox Defender, which we also reviewed, back in mid 2009.

OtterBox has since come out with a set of colored shells for its original Commuter series, and a few people have asked about the difference in the Commuter TL vs original Commuter cases.

Here's a brief run-down of the differences:

Protection (outer case). The Commuter TL has an outer shell that spans the whole back of the iPhone, from top to bottom, but does not protect the sides with any rigid material, relying instead on the rubberized casing.  The original Commuter has more of a slip-case design, protecting the back and the lower 2/3 of the iPhone's sides.

In addition, the Commuter TL uses a clear plastic outer shell, which protects the Apple logo on the back, while still allowing it to be viewed if one is looking straight on at the back of the iPhone. By contrast, the Commuter has an opening slightly larger than the apple, meaning the logo area is not protected.

Colors. The Commuter TL has a single-color neoprene soft shell, and the clear rigid shell on the back. The Commuter offers a two-tone option, as seen in the picture above. The base neoprene shell is black, while the rigid protective shell is colored.


Commuter colors are sold in "kits" that contain a standard black rigid shell, plus two interchangeable color options. Kits include the following options: Blue/Yellow, White/Green, Red/Grey.

We tested the Blue/Yellow color kit, with the blue options for both the Commuter and the Commuter TL shown in the picture above. We also tested the yellow, which stood out well in most situations, including being easily identifiable when dropped in a snow drift from the freak snowstorm that came through last week.

All in all, I think the color kit combinations are a great option for those who want to change up the color or style on any given day. I personally prefer the Commuter TL better, given the single-color / clear combination, as well as the fact that the rubberized sides have a better grip in my iPhone car dock.

The great news is that OtterBox offers choices in the Commuter line, regardless of your needs and color fashion sense. More information is available on both options at www.otterbox.com

Vevo launch countdown, another major label added to the mix

In an article I wrote this morning for streamingmedia.com, I mentioned uncertainty as to whether Vevo (under its Universal Music Group / Vivendi ownership) will get to its goal of having all four major labels on board by the time it launches tomorrow, December 8, 2009.

Apparently, in an early morning tweet, Universal announced that EMI is now on board.

Also, Peter Kafka, of MediaMemo, stated that Lala.com went for about $80 million, rather than the $35 million he'd initially projected. He says appears Warner didn't get back any of the write-down that it had done a few months ago (writing down approximately $11 million of its initial $20 million investment).

Review: IntelliScanner Mini

So, based on the potential and limitations of the SOHO small office scanner from IntelliScanner, we asked to review the Intelliscanner mini.

The mini can hold up to 150 scans before needing to be connected to a Macintosh computer (OS X 10.4, 10.5, 10.6) to have its scans downloaded.

"The mini includes media software for organizing books, CDs, DVDs and video games, wine software for organizing your wine bottles, comic software for comic books, kitchen software for organizing groceries and our home assets software for organizing or inventorying items in your home for insurance purposes like furniture and electronics," a company representative stated when asked about the features of the mini.

"The mini's software, noted above, includes the web app for sharing collections online or viewing them on an iPhone as part of the publish feature. Except for the kitchen software.

The lack of an iPhone publishing feature for the kitchen software is odd, as that particular software is able to make up grocery lists, one of the prima facie reasons for owning a PDA or pocket computer.