In a recent interview, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar told technology reporter Om Malik that his company was "very bullish" on mobile, even going so far as to say "we will embrace every device." That's a funny statement, considering that the company has been touting that same sentiment for years but has yet to launch anything for mobile, be it an app or simply a mobile-ready streaming site. Now, with the launch of the iPad just around the corner, the rumors of an iPhone/iPad Hulu app are rising up again. But there's a bigger mobile web than just the one accessible via Apple products, and that may be what Hulu has its eye on now. "We don't think about one device only," Kilar said. However, going mobile is going to be a challenge for Hulu. And it's not as simple as re-encoding a few videos, no matter what you may have heard. Sponsor Problem A: Hulu's Business Model Needs Work The fact that Hulu exists at all is somewhat of an amazement. Through tenuous connections with major studios, the collaborative, experimental effort to bring streaming TV to web (and make it profitable) has managed to attract a number of users in the U.S. Although the audience size varies widely depending on who's counting, the company has managed to become a household name thanks to eye-catching commercials on NBC featuring actors from the network's top shows. But there's a problem facing Hulu: in-video advertising is, apparently, not as profitable as once hoped. In fact, it's just too expensive , says Marc Ruxin, the Chief Innovation Officer for ad agency network McCann Worldgroup. Hulu has been aware of this problem, though, and has been hinting towards the launch of a subscription service , with News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch telling an investor conference last fall that the company, was looking at "adding subscription services and pay per view" options. Through the subscription model, Hulu could potentially generate enough revenue to keep the studios happy and maybe even encourage them to offer up more programming. Unfortunately, the subscription model has yet to launch and the profits from video ads have been far too lean for some Hulu participants. Recently, for example, Viacom pulled two of the top shows - The Daily Show and the Colbert Report - from the site, claiming that they simply weren't earning enough money via the advertising model currently in place. Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman said that "on the current economic model for Hulu, there's just not much in it for us to continue at this time." And so the situation degrades. So what is Hulu doing now? It's trying to attract more viewers to its site with the launch of " If I Can Dream ," an original series that premiered earlier this month. The fact that they're now making the foray into this sort of online programming is somewhat worrying. After all, if hit video webisodes alone made for a profitable service, then YouTube would have achieved profitability ages ago, instead of (maybe) getting there this year , five years post-launch. Let's face it, original programming is a bonus for Hulu users, but it's not going to take the place of hot shows like the now-departed Comedy Central fare. Problem B: Will Apple Allow a Hulu App on the iPhone/iPad? Another problem? Hulu has been planning to delay its iPhone app launch until a subscription model was in place, according to earlier reports . But with the biggest names pulling out, subscriptions could be a harder sell. Still, even if Hulu was able to make subscriptions happen, there are no guarantees that Apple would ever allow them into the iTunes store, especially considering they're offering a competing product. (See: Google Voice banishment from the iPhone , for example). Meanwhile, Hulu's online site doesn't work in the iPhone's web browser because it was built in Flash. If Apple rejects the Hulu app from iTunes, the company's other option is encoding all their site's content in H.264 and make that available via HTML5, the new web language that offers streaming video sans plugin. Since this has already been done, a Hulu app could launch a player on the iPhone or iPad, if, of course, Apple allowed them to do so. If not, then a mobile site would have to be built in HTML5 - video controls, overall UI, advertisements and all. That's no simple process. What's Hulu Doing Now? So is this the plan Hulu has decided on now? It's hard to know for sure. Like Apple, the company is incredibly secretive about their plans and product roadmap, often refusing to respond to calls and emails entirely, even to say "no comment." And yet, the Hulu iPhone app exists. We've spoken to someone who's seen it...but that was ages ago. For all we know, iPhone/iPad app plans have since been scrapped to work on a new solution that works around any potential Apple restrictions. But sources inside Hulu have clammed up lately, meaning they're either building something top, top secret...or perhaps nothing at all. We hope it's the former, because frankly, an iPad without Hulu is a sad, sad affair. But will we ever see a real app? At this point, we're not holding our breath. Discuss
So, you’ve come up with a great idea for an online business, and everyone that you’ve told about your idea thinks it will really be popular with internet audiences. Before you rush out to tell the world about what you’ve come up with, you’ve got to consider how you’ll use web site advertising to build a network of traffic for your business.
The internet is a great medium for entrepreneurs because it is almost a level playing field. Anyone can create their website, come up with a business plan, and start making money if they know how to use smart web site advertising to get them noticed on the web.
Unlike the real world of brick and mortar businesses, where if you have more money, you can build a fancier store front and set your prices lower, the internet doesn’t show favorites to those that have more money to throw at web site advertising. However, it will reward you handsomely for using those tactics in an intelligent way.
The key to using web site advertising in the most efficient way is to build links with other websites that will help to direct traffic to your pages. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, because usually other sites are loath to give up real estate to help someone else out.
This is why it can be helpful to work with an experience internet marketing firm that will be able to plug you into their already existing network of commerce and information websites. This is a smart type of web site advertising because not only will you get valuable links, you’ll be able to target your exposure to the audience members that are most likely to make a purchase.
If you are aware of your need for web site advertising but still unclear about how having additional links to your business on other websites is going to help you to be more successful, you’ve got to think of the web like a highway and your site like one of millions of exits.
Every time you have a link to your site placed on another website, it’s like adding the number of exits that will take people to your pages. The more people that travel through your pages every day, the more chance you have to make as sale and hit the goals that will make you successful.
Don’t allow your business to plateau at a low level of exposure! Click here to learn about proven web site advertising techniques that will increase your visibility and your success.
Our top story this week was location - location-based networks, services, advertising and even "feelings". Read on for our coverage and analysis. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things. Note: We've refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010, as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your thoughts on the new format. Sponsor Story of the Week: Location Can Brightkite Beat Foursquare & Gowalla With a Universal Check-in? Google Patents Location-Based Advertising 2 Services for DIY Mobile Social Networks Google Chrome Becomes Location Aware Can Geosense for Windows Help Kickstart the Development of Location-Aware Apps for Windows 7? Glow: Location-Based "Feelings" for iPhone More coverage and analysis of location-based technology Announcing the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services , augmented reality , native app vs. browser-based , commerce and marketing , mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: sales@readwriteweb.com , Register now for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit and get early bird rates - only $295. Mobile Web Watch Out, iPhone Devs: One-Man Android App Nets $13K Monthly Netflix on the iPhone? Yes, Please! Can We Kick Our Keyboard Addiction by 2013? More Mobile Web coverage Historic Conversation in NYC: Ai Weiwei, Jack Dorsey & Richard MacManus On March 15, at the prestigious Paley Center in New York City, a conversation will take place between Chinese digital activist and artist Ai Weiwei , Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey , and yours truly, Richard MacManus , ReadWriteWeb founder and editor in chief. The moderator will be Orville Schell , the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York. The topic of the event is the emergence of digital activism for fostering positive social change. The onsite event is invitation only, but it will be live streamed exclusively on ReadWriteWeb on Monday, March 15, at 6:30 PM EST (-5 GMT), from the Paley Center for Media, New York City. Internet of Things McKinsey: Get Ready For Sensor-Driven Business Models Ads with Eyes: Keeping Digital Signage in Check Google Wants Your Lamp to Tell You How Much Power It's Using More Internet of Things coverage Real-Time Web Google Index to Go Real Time 10.5 Million WordPress Blogs Get PubSubHubbub Beyond Twitter Search: Semantic Analysis of the Real-Time Web More Real-Time Web coverage . Don't miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb's report, The Real-Time Web and its Future . Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app . As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we've made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes . ReadWriteStart Our channel ReadWriteStart , sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark , is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs. The Startup Bus: Is This How Outsiders See Startup Culture? Picnik CEO to Startups: The M&As Are Out There Are Crowdsourcing and Outsourcing No-Nos For Startups? ReadWriteEnterprise Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' and using social software inside organizations. Will StatusNet Be Another Open-Source Star in the Enterprise? Drupal Founder Critical of SaaS and its Proprietary Nature ReadWriteCloud Our channel ReadWriteCloud , sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing. Steve Ballmer: Microsoft's Future Is in the Cloud Weekly Poll: What is the Top Threat to Cloud Computing? How Many Enterprise Workers Will Work in the Mobile Cloud? Try 130 Million That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone. Discuss
If you've ever used Craigslist before (and who hasn't?) then you know it can be amazingly useful for some things and a terrible waste of time for others. If you're a small business looking for an accountant or the best and cheapest way to outsource your HR, for example, then Craigslist might be asking for trouble. Austin-based startup BidModo is launching a public beta today that hopes to simplify this process for small businesses and provide them with better information to make better decisions, instead of simply relying on word of mouth referrals. Sponsor BidModo is a bit like the offspring of Yelp, the Better Business Bureau and Craigslist, but much shinier. In reality, comparing it to Craigslist is a bit of a disservice, as it offers so much more than text classified ads and email responses. Instead of just putting an ad out there and getting back simple replies, the responses come from registered companies and are organized on a dashboard. Each company has an on-site profile, containing contact information, a company history, provided services, previous clients, certificates and licenses, and a list of references. Each company also has a rating card, which shows how that business rates with its clients on ten different characteristics, from bid timeliness to industry knowledge. If you've ever used something like Craigslist, then you realize how hard, or even impossible, getting all of this information would be. You would practically need to hire a private investigator. For end users - those posting the job - the service is entirely free and provides the user with information about bidders, vendor ratings and a dashboard comparing bids. Vendors only pay for selected leads. A vendor dashboard provides information on ROI, monthly sales data, ratings feedback and industry stats. And part of BidModo's focus is on local business, so service requests only come from the region, which is something we think people, wherever they are, will stand behind. "Prior to BidModo, I ran a video production company," said founder Toby Schwartz in a press release. "I would regularly hear of companies in town turning to New York or San Francisco to hire for their video needs. And I can't tell you how many times I'd meet people in Austin who would comment that they wished they knew I was here." Currently, BidiModo is live nationally, with over 80 cities and connections in more than 100 different categories. Discuss
According to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project , 61% of Americans now get some of their news online, though local TV stations are still the most popular means of finding out about the news. Local print newspapers still reach 50% of Americans and 17% read the print versions of national papers like the New York Times or USA Today. While 38% of Americans still rely solely on offline sources for their daily news, only 2% of adults in the U.S. get their news exclusively from online sources. Sponsor The majority of news consumers in the U.S. (59%) now get their news from a combination of online and offline sources. News Portals Are the Most Popular Sources - Younger Internet Users also Rely on Social Networks When online, American Internet users generally rely on 2 to 5 different sites to get their news. Interestingly, 65% of online news users say that they don't have a favorite online news source. The majority of Internet users (56%) rely on news portals like Google News , AOL or Topix. Younger Internet users under 29 also tend to use social networks to look for interesting stories that their peers share with them (44%) and 13% specifically follow news organizations or individual journalists on social networking sites. Only 4% of all Internet users follow Twitter updates from journalists and news organizations to stay on top of the news. News podcasts are far more popular than Twitter for getting news updates. About 15% of online news users over 18 listen to news podcasts from organizations like NPR or the New York Times. What About RSS? Sadly, the Pew study did not ask users if they used RSS feeds and feed readers to consume news ("RSS" doesn't even appear in the report). While a lot of Internet users probably use RSS to consume news on portal sites and news aggregators without knowing it, it would be interesting to see how many people use services like Google Reader to consume news. Sharing News Three-quarters of all adult Internet users in the U.S. say that they get news forwarded to them by email or through posts on social networking sites. A quarter of these Internet users, however, also says that they barely ever read these stories. Demographics Marketers and the advertising departments for online news sources will be happy to hear that news users tend to be younger than the average population (68% are under 50 and 29% are under 30) and are likely to be employed full-time (50%) and have at least some college education (67%). Their household income also tends to be higher than the U.S. average. These users are also have faster broadband connections (84%) than the average Internet user. The heaviest consumers of online news are between 30 and 49 years old and likely to live in a household with an annual income of over $50,000. What do they look for? The vast majority of Internet users goes online to find out information about the weather (81%). News about national events (73%), health (66%), business and finance (64%) and news about international events (62%) are also among the top 5 most popular categories among online news consumers . Tech news is the sixth-most popular category. Get RWW News on Facebook You can become a fan of ReadWriteWeb on Facebook and get our news and analysis about the changing web delivered directly into your News feed. Discuss
