Netflix vs Hulu vs Amazon vs YouTube

With the emergence of the internet in technology today, we’ve seen major hits taken on large media distribution companies. Movies and music are losing money to piracy and replication, while newspapers are losing customers to online content. Blockbuster went bankrupt to major competitors such as Netflix, which at the time was simply a more efficient distribution method. It seems to me that everything is evolving another step further yet again. Tough to stay on top in this new world.

At this time, I’ve been hearing rumors and seeing stancing from a couple companies who could in-fact take large market share of streaming online content. You may be shocked by some of the names I include, but I’ll run through my personal opinion of each individually, in the order of which I think has the most dominance.

Netflix

Netflix is already in the thick of things. They beat out Blockbuster by mailing DVD’s to your door and keeping costs low, and standard recurring. Their costs are minimal and with streaming content, costs will simply drive lower. Netflix has put forth a lot of effort to get their movie catalog available online. When I had first signed up, the streaming content was very limited, but now with new deals with almost every major distribution company, I have some serious jusitification to throw out my DVD players. Heck, all my Windows installs are practically USB driven these days anyway.

I believe Netflix is going to continue to grow streaming content, for the simple fact that it is cheaper. They will continue to complete for those customers who do not have broadband connections and services with physical media such as Red Box, but I believe this to be a small niche in the future. In addition to all of this, Netflix is now available on major gaming consoles and TV systems: XBox360, PlayStation 3, Wii, AppleTV, and GoogleTV.

Kudo’s to Netflix!

Hulu

With Comcast’s takeover of NBC (partial owner of Hulu), there’s a lot of debate about what is going to happen with Hulu. We’ve heard companies such as Fox and ABC pulling out and selling their ownership. There are lots of rumors flying around Hulu these days.

Hulu currently has been involved with contracts of many major distribution companies to get their TV series streamed online and I believe this gives great opportunity for Hulu to enter into the movie distribution market as well. At this time, they are dominating in streaming online television. You can find a comparison of some of the differences in shows here:

http://gigaom.com/video/hulu-plus-vs-netflix-instant-who-has-the-advantage/

Amazon

Amazon Video on Demand has released a Video on demand portion of their website where you can rent content just like you would at the movie store. Amazon is a giant and can make major moves in the market. There have been many rumors of Amazon entering into the streaming content arena. They already sell the physical copies, so they have the relationships with the major distributors. The question is how they execute.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20030003-1.html?tag=mncol;txt

http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/start

YouTube

I included YouTube because I feel that they are finally getting on the right track with advertising. For years, I had wondered when YouTube would simply include short ads before the video plays and possibly after every 5 clips you watch. They finally started to implement this. I believe the guys at Google got tied up with the “only text ads” montra they followed with search. Well, video is different, and you finally caught on, Congrats.

We know that YouTube has mastered distributing high volume content, so where is their next move going to be focussed? Some say main-stream digital media.

http://blog.sceneclips.com/the-business/netflix-vs-youtube

I believe this sets up the stage for a fun fight to watch in the digital streaming market place. I’m excited to see what deals and cool technologies will be created to get me to switch from Netflix.