Today I read two interesting postings about PBS and the new religion — streaming media — broadcasting Hulu style.
Seems that when PBS decided to do a deal with Hulu awhile back they were only testing the waters. Some of their shows Nova, Wired Science, Carrier and Scientific American Frontiers, went up with commercials. That was all handled by their money-making arm PBS Ventures; don’t want to mess with that not-for-profit status.
PBS has been moving into the digital broadcasting space and creating revenue models that have brought home the cash. First making some of their shows available at their website, a great way to test interest. Then a channel on YouTube. And they apparently do a brisk business on iTunes according to the NYTimes.
The experiment with Hulu obviously has proved successful and they have launched their own video space at pbs.org
I pointed my browser over to PBS to see exactly what they had done. What kind of interface and advertising/sponsorship model they had point in place.
When you get to the pbs.org welcome screen the video is behind just another gray button Watch Episodes, no special treatment. You click and get a less than exciting selector. Not an inviting interface. Where’s all the cool stuff? There is something very unPBS-like about this black interface too. Trying to be too cool? The interaction is clumsy and the video has artifacts and pixelates at full screen view. It uses a stacked index card selector, a poor imitation of coverflow by Apple. There are plenty out of the box interface controls that would have made this site easier to use.
Of course this is a beta so some things can be flakey. But usually you don’t see major functions of visual presentation changing at this stage of development. That’s too bad because everything feels wrong about this site.
You have to select from two dropdown menues. Sorry but there is plenty of available space to make some kind of offering to me.
This what I had expected to see. Maybe something was broken?
Navigating required clicking on the narrow space betwwen the stacked imags. Hard target. Selected the wrong thing several times.
The same selection device at the show level. Hard target. Dumb.
PBS Hulu Style?
Today I read two interesting postings about PBS and the new religion — streaming media — broadcasting Hulu style.
Seems that when PBS decided to do a deal with Hulu awhile back they were only testing the waters. Some of their shows Nova, Wired Science, Carrier and Scientific American Frontiers, went up with commercials. That was all handled by their money-making arm PBS Ventures; don’t want to mess with that not-for-profit status.
PBS has been moving into the digital broadcasting space and creating revenue models that have brought home the cash. First making some of their shows available at their website, a great way to test interest. Then a channel on YouTube. And they apparently do a brisk business on iTunes according to the NYTimes.
The experiment with Hulu obviously has proved successful and they have launched their own video space at pbs.org
I pointed my browser over to PBS to see exactly what they had done. What kind of interface and advertising/sponsorship model they had point in place.
When you get to the pbs.org welcome screen the video is behind just another gray button Watch Episodes, no special treatment. You click and get a less than exciting selector. Not an inviting interface. Where’s all the cool stuff? There is something very unPBS-like about this black interface too. Trying to be too cool? The interaction is clumsy and the video has artifacts and pixelates at full screen view. It uses a stacked index card selector, a poor imitation of coverflow by Apple. There are plenty out of the box interface controls that would have made this site easier to use.
Of course this is a beta so some things can be flakey. But usually you don’t see major functions of visual presentation changing at this stage of development. That’s too bad because everything feels wrong about this site.
You have to select from two dropdown menues. Sorry but there is plenty of available space to make some kind of offering to me.
This what I had expected to see. Maybe something was broken?
Navigating required clicking on the narrow space betwwen the stacked imags. Hard target. Selected the wrong thing several times.
The same selection device at the show level. Hard target. Dumb.