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March 26, 2008 10:10 PM PDT

Hulu's new school of advertising: Choice

by Harrison Hoffman

When Hulu launched a couple of weeks ago, one of their big promises was to give users choice about how they want their advertising. While this was not available immediately on launch, Hulu is rolling out this capability now on certain content.

Giving users a choice in how they view ads makes for a really great experience. Many people come from the philosophy that ads spliced into a movie ruin the flow, so they would rather watch the pre-roll trailer. Others don't mind the break that the short advertisements provide when scattered throughout the movie. I personally really like the idea of watching a movie trailer before a movie on Hulu. It's an experience that we are all very familiar with. Regardless of your preferences, at least Hulu is giving you some control here.

Hulu has been very creative with their advertising and I really applaud them for that. On the whole, most people would classify advertisements as being annoying. Combining this new user choice style of advertising with their overlay advertising and more traditional forms provides an experience that is more engaging than annoying.

I'm not sure how long this feature has been on the site, but I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere and Hulu was unavailable for comment, so I thought that I'd bring it to everyone's attention.

Harrison Hoffman is a tech enthusiast and co-founder of LiveSide.net, a blog about Windows Live. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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by cr250guy March 27, 2008 10:32 AM PDT
ZOMG i was there when you took that pic : P
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by belowtheradar April 2, 2008 10:23 AM PDT
I actually found using modernfeed a better experience
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by syib4u August 4, 2008 1:36 PM PDT
HULU appears part of a conspiracy to destroy people?s sound cards. For the best movies one must turn up all the sound just to hear it. My 3.5 year old sound card sounds ten years old already.
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About The Web Services Report

Harrison Hoffman is a tech enthusiast and co-founder of LiveSide.net, a blog about Windows Live. The Web Services Report covers news, opinions, and analysis on Web-based software from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and countless other companies in this rapidly expanding space. Hoffman currently attends the University of Miami, where he studies business and computer science.

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