Hulu Plus: Now Available on Android

If you wanted to watch movies or TV shows on your phone, but had an Android device, until recently you were mostly out of luck. Not too long ago, Netflix, the popular paid video streaming service, announced their Android version of their mobile application. Most probably due to issues of video piracy, it was only available on a few Android devices. Now Hulu Plus is following suit.

Hulu.com is a website that allows you to watch clips of movies and TV shows, or even entire movies or TV shows for free. One can also sign up for Hulu Plus, which, at $7.99 per month, brings some more content, as well as allowing users to access Hulu from more devices, instead of just being able to watch from a browser.

Hulu Plus was available for a while on the iPhone, Playstation 3, and XBOX 360, but the latest addition to the app lineup is Hulu Plus for Android. However, like the Netflix app for Android, Hulu Plus for Android is only available on a select six devices, with more devices coming later on. Hulu Plus can be downloaded from the Android Market.

Overall, it's great that Hulu is expanding their application platforms to include Android, but it would be really nice if the app was available on all Android devices, instead of just six. If you are on Android and want to access video content, look into Netflix, as Netflix price is equal to Hulu Plus', and definitely has more content, with no advertising.

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Sagan's Cosmos Series Online on Hulu

Here is a good resource for teachers, from Bad Astronomy.

Hulu is carrying the entire popular and highly acclaimed Public Broadcasting Service series Cosmos. First broadcast in 1980, Cosmos won an Emmy and a Peabody Award, and popularized astronomy to more than 600 million people in 60 countries. The series made its narrator, astronomer Carl Sagan, a household name.

Online Video -- Both Short and Long Form -- Skyrockets in 2008

And one final set of statistics from the comScore 2008 Digital Year in Review (requires registration and .pdf download):

"Online video viewing continued its rapid ascent in 2008, with 6% more people in the U.S. viewing 34% more videos versus a year ago... By November 2008, online video viewing accounted for 12.5% of Americans’ total time spent on the Internet, up from 8.5% in November 2007.

YouTube, with 40% market share in November 2008, continues to be a significant driver in the U.S. video market… the site generated 5.1 billion U.S. video views during the month, representing a 74% increase versus year ago.

Another developing trend in online video is the move from primarily short-form, user-generated content to more longform, professionally-created content, including full-length movies and TV shows. Hulu, the joint video venture of Fox and NBC, stormed onto the scene in 2008, generating a 57% increase in videos viewed during the past six months and currently ranking as the #6 video site by both unique viewers and videos viewed. Hulu also had an average viewing time of nearly 12 minutes per video in November, substantially higher than any other top video site and a major contributing factor to the increase in online video duration from 2.8 minutes per video to 3.1 minutes per video."