YouTube vs. Hulu

The video that I watched on YouTube was "The Happiest DJ in the World," which is a literally a video of an extremely happy and hyper DJ at a party. The video was less a minute and 15 seconds and the poor quality of the video suggested that it was probably taped on a guest's video camera. The video shared a funny, real life situation with 979,657 other viewers and most likely many more to come.

On the other hand, the video that I watched on Hulu was an old skit from Saturday Night Live, "Celebrity Jeopardy." Before I was able to watch the video, I had to watch a 15-second advertisement for U.S. Cellular. Compared to the YouTube video, the quality of this clip was much better. It looked much like the quality of a show airing on television.

The main difference I found between the two was that YouTube as a whole contained more user-generated and amateur content. The low barrier to entry on YouTube basically allows anyone with a computer to upload something to this site and share it with the rest of the Internet. Additionally, viewers can see how many times a video has been viewed, comments from other viewers, and what the video has been ranked. Hulu, on the other hand, provided more expert content, mostly taken from television. The clips and episodes all included advertisements before and during the viewings, much like in television. Because the website generators are the only individuals that can upload videos onto the site, the barrier to entry is obviously very high. Overall, the two websites provide extremely different and specialized user and viewer experiences.