Posts Tagged ‘ad space’

Hulu experience

Hulu - A Day In The Life_ Tim Ferriss - Watch the full episode now.-1I’ve never seen anything from Hulu before but the idea for streaming TV seems totally amazing. What’s even better is that there are Hulu Originals, which in my head, I think of a “HBO Original Series”.

I saw an original from a series titled “A Day In The Life”. This one featured Tim Ferriss, the author of several books in the four-hour series. It was about 30 minutes long and it was amazing. I saw ads:

  • Before the video started, I saw an ad (30 seconds long, from the title sponsor). This is basically like what you see on YouTube these days. You have a choice to watch one long form commercial or just see them as it happens like a normal TV show.
  • Around 6 minutes into it, there were 3 ads. These ad combos are about 1.5 minutes long. So each ad is about 30 seconds long.
  • I see that you can swap ads – an “ad swapper” called “Hulu ad swap”. You have 3 ads to choose from. So you basically watch ads.
  • You can also tell Hulu if the ad is relevant to you or not. I for example learned more about Bing and found that it was useful as an ad.
  • Around 15 minutes into it, I got yet another 3 ads
  • Around 25 minutes into it I got an ad about the Hulu original series itself that wasn’t skippable which then led me to another 1 minute 15 second ad break.
  • I can pause Hulu TV and come back to it exactly where I left of.

Hulu - A Day In The Life_ Tim Ferriss - Watch the full episode now.So in 30 minutes, I saw 10 ads paid for by their advertisers. The first ad is by the title sponsor. The remaining 9 are various rolling ads that I can skip. Oh, and I saw another ad about the Hulu series itself, so in total, they were basically 11 ads. Thats about 330 seconds of ads. Some 5.5 minutes of ads in 30 minutes.

On whoring oneself

In what I call a great advertising scheme, Leora Zellman, a blogger, photographer, brand evangelist, etc. is offering her sexy body as ad space.

Her body will cost you on an hourly basis, she’s mostly logo focused, but will also wear schwag, like t-shirts and caps. Buy her back, butt, or chest, they all have varying prices. If athletes do it, why not us regular Joe’s, right?

Well, its not like we all don’t do this. I wear t-shirts with penguins, dolphins, and various other bits all the time. In fact, I haven’t bought a t-shirt in over nine years.

Will this work? Maybe. At a geek conference, every other geek is probably wearing stuff with logos on them. Might be useful for new products? I’ve never actually looked at a t-shirt and thought to myself, “Hmm, I need to check that URL/product out”. Maybe other’s have?

Reminds me of the time Leah Culver sold advertising space on her laptop. Also, on another tangent, Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur spoke about Amanda Congdon using her body to promote her content, Leo basically saying it wasn’t smart. Check out net@night episode 51 for more.

Well Leo, most of the popular blogs in Malaysia, are “photo blogs”, of people “camwhoring”, i.e. showing themselves off in places. Is it sustainable? Maybe not. But will it bring popularity and money in the short term? Probably yes. Some even go on to getting fame ;)

Anyways, enough ranting on this. Best wishes Leora, and to all the other “camwhores” out there.


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