Hulu Falls Short In Comparison To Blockbusters

If you massage the stats enough, Hulu's an entertainment giant, hanging neck and neck with this year's most popular movies.  If you adopt a more objective perspective, however, it becomes pretty clear that the video-centric site hasn't exactly achieved blockbuster status.

In a report released this afternoon to NewTeeVee, Buzzpoint put Hulu just behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and ahead of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Up, and The Hangover in terms of revenue and opening weekend gross.  The catch is that Hulu's revenue for all of 2009 ($120 million) had to be counted to keep it in this group.

Similarly, Hulu topped Buzzpoint's list related to visitors and audience members at opening weekends.  By quite a lot, too - 42.5 million pairs of eyeballs focused on the free site, while runner-up New Moon attracted just 20.0 million watchers.

But the Hulu data covers the whole month of October, not a couple of days.  And it's hard to imagine that every Hulu visitor spent two or three hours completely focused on the site.

The Buzzpoint report concluded, "While Hulu's content strategy is obviously centered around television shows rather than movies, these comparisons to Hollywood nevertheless help illustrate the lengths Hulu needs to travel in order to become a true blockbuster."

Have You Read This?

> Hulu Partners With "American Idol" Creator For Web Reality Show

> Hulu Is Seeing Record Numbers

> MySpace's "New Moon" Webcast Brings In 3m Viewers

The Things People Looked for Pictures of on Twitter in 2009

Earlier, we looked at Twitter's top trending topics of 2009. They broke it down into several top ten lists based on various categories.

Yfrog, a site that hosts images and videos for people to share on Twitter, has shared its top ten image searches for 2009. In other words, this is a reflection of what people are looking for images of on Twitter. Granted, Yfrog is not the only service that people use to share pictures on Twitter. TwitPic is an obvious one. Still, Yfrog is a reasonably popular one, and it would be hard to believe if TwitPic's list was too different.

Here's Yfrog's Top 10 of 2009

1. New Moon / Twilight
2. Jonas Brothers
3. Tiger Woods
4. Michael Jackson
5. Halloween / costume
6. iPhone
7. Adam Lambert
8. Kanye West / RIP Kanye West
9. Iran election
10. Miley Cyrus

"In 2009 posting pictures and videos to sites like Facebook and Twitter became standard practice for the tech savvy," a YFrog representative tells WebProNews. "Instant media sharing defined not only a new form of citizen journalism, but revolutionized how pop culture, politics and current events are captured and shared globally."

This is only one of the many top ten of 2009 lists we have covered, and don't be surprised if there are more. Check out some of the other 2009 lists in the related articles and get ready for a new year.

Have You Read This?

> What the Most People Watched on YouTube in 2009

> The Most Searched For Terms of 2009

> Death, Disease, Money, and Twitter on Bing

> The Definitions That People Didn't Know in 2009

> What People Talked About on Twitter Most in 2009

What the Most People Watched on YouTube in 2009

It's that time of year when all of the big web properties reflect on the year's worth of activity. We already saw Twitter's top trending topics for 2009, for example. YouTube is also sharing its most watched videos and most searched for queries.

"This year has been the biggest yet for online video, and for the first time we're sharing our official Most Watched lists and some of the fastest-rising search terms on YouTube," says YouTube Associate Product Manager Jamie Davidson. "Some moments were big (President Obama's inauguration), some small (a Minnesota wedding party erupts into dance), some expected ('New Moon'), some surprising (Susan Boyle) — but all of them inspired, entertained and connected millions of people around the world via YouTube."

The Top five most watched were:

1. Susan Boyle - Britain's Got Talent (120+ million views)

I would've embedded it, but embedding is disabled.
 
2. David After Dentist (37+ million views)

3. JK Wedding Entrance Dance (33+ million views)

4. New Moon Movie Trailer (31+ million views)

5. Evian Roller Babies (27+ million views)

The top five most watched music videos on YouTube were:

1. Pitbull "I Know You Want Me" (82+ million views)
2. Miley Cyrus "The Climb" (64+ million views)
3. Miley Cyrus "Party in the U.S.A." (54+ million views)
4. The Lonely Island "I'm On a Boat" (48+ million views)
5. Keri Hilson "Knock You Down" (35+ million views)

YouTube also provided a look at the fastest-rising search terms by month for the whole world, as well as the U.S.:

Fastest Rising YouTube search terms by month (Global):

January: inauguration
February: christian bale
March: the climb
April: susan boyle
May: pacquiao vs hatton
June: michael jackson thriller
July: michael jackson
August: usain bolt
September: kanye west
October: paranormal activity
November: bad romance
December: tiger woods

Fastest Rising YouTube search terms by month (U.S.):

January: obama inauguration
February: on a boat
March: watchmen
April: susan boyle
May: pacquiao
June: michael jackson thriller
July: wedding
August: send it on
September: kanye west
October: paranormal activity
November: adam lambert
December: tiger woods

Are you surprised by any of the results that YouTube shared? Did something you expected to make the list not appear? Discuss here.

On another YouTube-related note, the company is reportedly considering paid subscriptions to encourage more media companies to license premium TV shows and movies

Have You Read This?

> Death, Disease, Money, and Twitter on Bing

> The Definitions That People Didn't Know in 2009

> What People Talked About on Twitter Most in 2009

New Film Website Offers 12,000 Clips From Major Studios

Clip sharing site Movieclips.com has launched in beta with a catalogue of more than 12,000 two-minute streaming clips.

Movieclips has struck licensing deals with six major Hollywood studios including 20th Century Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. The clips are available for free on an ad-supported network that links to third-party sites where users can rent or purchase full length films.

Movieclips features a video player that can be embedded in social networks like Facebook and MySpace, and shared on blogs, Twitter and other personal websites.

Users can search the site based on dialogue, mood or actor as well as browse by subject such as best kiss, tearjerkers, birthdays, holidays, awkward moments, scariest bad guy and best fight scenes.

"Our goal was to build a place where we could easily find, watch, and share all the best movie scenes," said Co-Founder and CEO Zach James.

"Our content partners are incredible. They made it possible for us to build the greatest collection of licensed movie clips online today. It's pretty cool to be able to send a clip from Sixteen Candles to my sister on her birthday or a Wayne's World 'Party on!' clip to my friends on a Friday night."

 

Have You Read This?

>Google Makes Improvements To Movie Showtime Searches

>Best Buy To Launch Online Movie Service

>The Twilight Saga: New Moon Takes Over Social Media

 

Next Page »