Comparing global traffic for Justin.TV and Hulu borders on being idiotic since Hulu is, um let's see, not accessible outside the US. How can TC write a whole article about this and not even mention this pretty pertinent fact?
Edit: It's been pointed out that the article does mention that Hulu is only available in the U.S. Sorry, totally missed that. The article still seems trollish though.
The title is very misleading. It is not saying that Justin.TV outside the US is bigger than Hulu outside the US.
The article is saying that Justin.TV (global, including the US) is bigger than Hulu (only available in the US).
That is a true statement, even if it is also worth pointing out that Hulu only reaches US consumers, so in percentage terms, it reaches a larger percent of its audience, even though it is smaller on an absolute scale to Justin.TV.
I agree they could mention it, but i think they are trying to show a trend. The trend is what is important in this story. It shows live video on the web has an audience. Personally i use justin.tv to watch European cycling races that you can't watch in the US.
This is a company that I am just very uncomfortable with. Just so much pirated content. If they get anywhere close to popular, they are going to get sued. I hope they have a big war-chest.
I know the immediate answer - YouTube. Just because they got rich (Google still doesn't seem to have made money on the deal) doesn't make what they did right. Right and wrong, yeah, I know, very "quaint" notions.
After all, Wall Street investment bankers got very rich creating toxic waste and ultimately unloading it on the tax payer. I met a dude recently who was in that line of business, and he said it wasn't like they didn't know what they were doing. They all along knew what the game was, but their attitude was "I am getting mine, so who cares."
Does anyone know how much of that is essentially pirated content? The reason I ask is that I have trouble imagining there are 15 million people watching live streams of random people (i.e. the original stream of Justin's). It's more believable that they watch stuff like sporting events that have no local coverage. I could obviously be wrong though!
What about in terms of advertising dollars? That's what matters, otherwise you're just losing cash on unmonetizable streams. I'd wager Hulu is far and away the leader in monetizing their traffic.
Guys, the main point Erick is making is that live video is significant, not that Justin.tv is kicking Hulu's ass. Despite the title, that's an interesting observation. I for one didn't think live video would be as big.
So most of its audience and growth is global, with particular strength in Spain, Brazil, Germany, and the UK.
I'm pleasantly surprised Brazil has that much broadband penetration.
That's because the lawyers haven't adjusted yet. They go combing the internet for their content after it airs, but by that time its already gone from justin.tv. For that reason, you used to be able to watch MMA events on justin.tv until only a few months ago, but those events have long been scrubbed from youtube, Dailymotion, and the other video services not based in Russia. However, it does seem that the lawyers are catching up. UFC is now blocked on justin.tv, for example.
I have a question about justin.tv's architecture. I always avoided the site because I made public denunciations of its stupid name, but I eventually went to it and was shocked by its similarity to blogtv.com
Edit: It's been pointed out that the article does mention that Hulu is only available in the U.S. Sorry, totally missed that. The article still seems trollish though.