OK, so we've been there too. We feel your pain guys and girls but... shouldn't you have been ready for this? You've been prepping launch for quite a while now, and even though the m$m can't seem to figure out exactly what the hell you are (namely, an ad supported, client dl required, walled-in, last resort for the music industry to fight against open and free distribued p2p networks), at least you're getting an assload of press.
Funny how every single blog and site we see is simply reporting how great and revolutionary this will be, yet they haven't clicked your linkey lately or they would be reporting this same story. Too bad nobody reads us but us.
Eh, we're pretty much over the funnay at this point anyway.
We're gonna go listen to Gratista and watch WKRP on Hulu while we eat Qtrax's lunch.
It's time, once again, to play everybody's favorite intarwebz game - "How long can this site last?"
We just stumbled across Gratista on digg and then suddenely felt really guilty for not signing into our StumbleUpon account in ages. So we decided distract ourselves by lacing down our Z! homies with some pimped-out late night listening. If you're headed out, Furl this for laterz. If you're just getting home please enjoy a fackload of easily accessible |\/|p3 flavor music stylings by your favorite artist(s).
Gratista is simple and to the point, which is why we love it - and also why there's no way it will be around for very long. Lotta esnips redirecting going on. Whatevs. So far we've had about a 90% success rate with the files and it buffers up nice and quickly too. No spyware. Just a reasonably small GoogAds banner. We might even click on it after we finish watching all the damn Anonymous videos on YT.
We finally got our invite to Hulu today and any lingering doubts we had about the awesomeness of their delivery, architecture and overall business model were quickly dispatched after wonking about with their controls. There are several specific features that made us raise an eyebrow and vow to continue brushing up on our RoR knowledge, including a 'dim the lights' feature which grays out all the busyness surrounding your currently streaming vid - and the smooth transitions between popping out, full screening then going back to the original embedded version, with nary a hiccup or restart. *knocks back a shot of single malt Glenlivet* Smooooooth man... smoooth. Not to mention they have quite a solid lineup of content, including NBC, Fox, Bravo, G4, Sundance, plus lots more.
The most fun we've had so far was watching Conan's recent opening monologue/on-air faux battle with Messr. Colbert over who actually MADE Mike Huckabee. Was it Norris? Was it Colbert? Or did Conan actually make ALL of them? We think you know the answer.
That was followed closely by the fun of picking our own clip, then auto generating the embed code. YES it was fun. We swear. Lookit.
Not only is the embed process seriously intuitive and easy to grasp, even for non-technophilez.. it just works. The delivered stream looks top notch, the supporting ad is non-annoying and lasts exactly as long as it should, namely a few seconds.
Who knows where Hulu will end up in the totem pole of 2.0 but they are strong out of the gate and we'll be watching them, and their content closely. First we're gonna go eat someone else's lunch from the company fridge though. Anybody need anything while we're up?
Damn the creators of blinkx for sucking every bit of our free time and productivity away with their sweet new video mash-up application the "Video Wall". DAMN THEM ALL.
