On Monday, IMDB.com added video content to its movie database Web site. The Amazon-owned online destination will offer over 6,000 videos, including movies and television shows, at no cost to users.
The videos will come from CBS, Sony Pictures Television, Hulu, and various independent filmmakers. Content owners will control how long their videos will remain on the site.
Among all the TV shows, clips, independent shorts, full-length feature films, classic movies, and trailers will be the season premieres of hit shows like “30 Rock.”
While the announcement would seem to threaten the popular Hulu, once a user sees IMDB’s video page (which is linked to from its homepage), it’s quickly apparent that this is no Hulu competitor.
- First off, much of the video content is merely embedded from other sites, including Hulu.
- Secondly, the presentation and limited sorting/searching options ruin the user experience, which is a major strength of Hulu’s.
- Thirdly, there is almost no social aspect to the offering.
If Amazon plans on building on IMDB’s rough entrance into the online video game, then this will serve as a decent foundation. However, if this is something akin to the finished product, expect this to wan into irrelevance quickly.
Sources:
http://www.imdb.com/features/video/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/15/imdb-finally-adds-video-content-ill-give-it-three-stars/
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1531826820080915
Jason Hahn
e: jhahn221@gmail.com
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