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YouTube Versus Hulu: The Battle For Eyeballs

We are now reaching the advent of this thing known as online streaming.

However, there is still a battle raging for just which name will reign supreme, YouTube or Hulu.

Between 2007 and 2009, video traffic grew roughly 67%, and video represents 2.65% of all of Internet traffic. YouTube is easily the internet’s giant when it comes to web video watching, recording 97 million unique users in an April 2010 Nielsen Co. rating. However, Hulu, the fifth ranked video site, only had 13 million viewers.

That said, YouTube pales in comparison to Hulu when it comes to time spent each visit. With their style of video differing greatly, Hulu is used for television, while YouTube is for shorter, user created videos, the two bring two distinctly different demographics. Hulu users spent an average of 253 minutes on the site, while YouTube users only stayed for 94 minutes.

Netflix controls that market however, as their users spent an average of 428 minutes on the site.

So, who rules this roost? Personally, the outlet I use most is obviously Netflix. However, I don’t think this has to be an either or situation. These outlets all serve distinctly different demos and reasons to exist. Hulu is perfect for television, YouTube for user created videos, and Netflix for films, so unless one decides to jump ship to a new form, like YouTube doing their streaming service. To me, this is a rather pointless argument, as they work best together, not singularly.

What do you think?

Source: PC World

Joshua Brunsting

Josh is a critic, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, a wrestling nerd, a hip-hop head, a father, a cinephile and a man looking to make his stamp on the world, one word at a time.