*Denotes the most recent band(s)

Bands I’ve seen in Austin
2008-2009
Heavy Pets
Foo Fighters
Guster
Ben Folds
Missy Higgins
Matisyahu
Pinetop Perkins
O.A.R.
Eric Hutchinson
Gnarls Barkley
Grupo Fantasma
Dan Dyer
Keller Williams

Busy with school work and other stuff but here’s a quickie:

I am not one to watch much television or even streaming television online, but I noticed that there are rumors going around that Hulu is going to start charging for content.  This is a stupid idea because there are other options that exist for Hulu.

They have the technical capability to make it so that you have to sit through videos and can’t fast forward through it, but they only show a few short commercials or one semi-long one.

Why don’t they actually just show more commercials and make consumers sit through them?  The primary reason why consumers go online to watch television shows is time-shifting, not saving time/avoiding commercials.  Its a convenience!  Hulu should take advantage of this and tax consumers with more commercials.  ”If you want to watch our shows at your convenience then you can get slammed with a tax.”

Obviously, don’t add more commercials to exceed the length of the show as if it was watched on-air.  If it is a 30 minute show on-air, make it a 30 minute show online.

There is always the economics argument against this that if the supply of ads increases, then prices will drop.   If Hulu used targeted advertising, as I suggested the newspaper industry do in this post, they will be able to charge a premium for advertising.

Obviously, Hulu can also create a premium account with no advertising, but not having a free model is like a death sentence; illegal video websites will win out over a pay only model.