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Comment by bernardom | Hacker News Reader

Holy cow. This is a big deal.

There is no reason why TV networks need to exist the way they do. Hulu, Netflix and Amazon all produce original content and are perfectly positioned to disrupt them as their distribution volume increases. Even the current distribution channel is being disrupted by Aereo. Hulu is a a huge asset.

If Yahoo gets in this game, they have a massive number of users, photos (flickr), blogposts (tumblr), mail, content... they're rivaling the reach and diversity of Amazon and Google as content owners (though without their respective cash cows of b2c sales and ads).

What's next? Is there some sort of connection that I'm missing between flickr, tumblr, the existing yahoo platform and hulu? Do they buy vimeo from IAC, or buy/merge with IAC? What's the strategy behind all the acquisitions?

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They tried to buy a majority share from dailymotion from Orange a couple of weeks ago, but it was blocked by the french governement (a big shareholder in Orange).

Yahoo really wants a video service. I guess they want to come back to having a modern set of active services.

From the article's third paragraph:

Yahoo had previously tried to buy a large stake in French video site DailyMotion, but that bid was stymied by the French government.

>but it was blocked by the french governement

Governments screw everything up

They were probably right on the money considering Yahoo's reputation.

I would say we're already screwed if we're allowing governments to get in situations where they "consider Yahoo's reputation."

That's none of their damn business.

Given that they own a bunch of stock in Orange, yes, it literally is their business.

a bunch like in biggest shareholder. I still don't know if I agree with the action made in my name tho. I'm not in this anti-state crap, I just wonder how to make efficient militant shareholder decisions. To their credit they are trying something.

"What's the strategy behind all the acquisitions?"

I think yahoo finally got their shit together. Yahoo! has always been a surprisingly healthy company from a strict financial standpoint. They are a strong stock that a lot of blue-collar investors have loved; consistent, slightly innovative (enough to meet projections, but not too crazy that might have resulted in major losses [even though they have stumbled]) and they offer the basic pillars of a healthy tech company i.e. mail, search, content etc.

Yahoo has a nice amount of cash, and they are finally using it in a beneficial way, which is funny because it took someone from Google to realize that (remember yahoo trying to position itself as a "media" company).

I think the strategy is to do what you described above; be able to compete with the likes of Google and Amazon. They have mail, content, a social network (Tumblr and Flickr), healthy advertising etc and if they can pull off Hulu they would be able to have an end-to-end solution for users. I don't think they would buy Vimeo, from my perspective I couldn't see why that would be beneficial and IAC would probably want a hefty price for it.

If I was going long on a tech stock (say 36-60 months) I would put my money on Yahoo. I think Marissa Mayer is finally getting it right.

Think how google has sprinkled G+ across all their properties - I'm guessing Yahoo's next big announcement will be some kind of social layer bringing it all together. I would be most surprised if Yahoo did not already have 1000 monkeys coding away on some secret black ops social product that will launch in some form before the end of the year.

They've already said it: they want their homepage to be all about you. Think about what that means in this wider context, where they operate as an alternative way to discover content across all kinds of different verticals. They want to take over the space currently occupied by traditional media. For better or for worse, they're the most "human" of Silicon Valley's big web companies, and I think they might actually succeed.

I would argue though that social isn't about "you" - its about "them", your friends, your social network. Currently I'm not sure it its possible to "friend" or "circle" someone on any Yahoo page (excluding now tumblr), and "sharing" on Yahoo is just a series of exit links to every other social network. That must make Marissa mad.

Yahoo has always been a content portal. The strategy? To have a diverse range of offerings in the hopes that everything you use will be be on the Yahoo network. That's been the winning strategy since AOL, but success in the area has proven fleeting.

>users, photos (flickr), blogposts (tumblr), mail, content

Other than content, arent those second rate internet properties though? Maybe thats their plan in order not to compete with google/amazon.

(i know flickr is used by professionals, but instagram probably has more users)

Flickr has an estimated 87 million users [1], and Instagram has 100 million. Note sure what your definition of "second rate" is (quality or quantity?) but Flickr is much better quality than Instagram, especially after the recent update. Regarding email, Outlook, GMail, and Y! Mail are pretty much all tied at 290'ish million users worldwide, but Y! owns the top spot in the US [3]. Most of Y!'s media properties are #1 in their respective areas as well (News, Sports, OMG, etc).

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/20/4121574/flickr-chief-marku...

[2] http://instagram.com/press/#

[3] http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57543177-93/gmail-edges-hot...

I stand corrected

Most of those Flickr users are dormant accounts, like mine.

>Hulu, Netflix and Amazon all produce original content and are perfectly positioned to disrupt them as their distribution volume increases.

Uhh, as a Hulu subscriber, I'll just let you know: If I only had "Hulu" content to pick from, I'd cancel my subscription immediately. It's not great stuff, barely worth paying for and CERTAINLY not worth both paying for and sitting through the same 4 advertisements over-and-over-and-over again for.

Basically, I don't care who owns Hulu, but if Hulu isn't getting next-day network television + back catalogs, then I'm not going to subscribe. That's what I want it for, and I imagine I'm not the only one.

Yeah Hulu-specific content is not that great. The main reason I watch it is for specific TV shows that I want to watch after they air on cable. I canceled my cable two years ago and I haven't looked back since.

sitting through the same 4 advertisements over-and-over-and-over again for

What is it I don't understand about the online video business that causes this to happen? They can't get enough advertisements from their partners to allow them to be less repetitive? Advertisers don't want to provide variety? (Maybe advertisers specifically want the monotony? Surely not, else they'd follow the same scheme on network TV.) The endless repetition sucks to watch and it makes the whole thing seem amateurish.

I think this might be one of the areas that Yahoo could really help. They've got a lot of advertising experience, and would hopefully improve Hulu's ad performance.

Both Hulu and Tumblr have proved that ads can work in their product, but haven't really brought them to any meaningful scale. Maybe that's what attracts Yahoo to them?

Honestly, I'm just glad someone took that Gangnam Style pistachio commercial out back and shot it finally.

I'm scared to even mention the commercial though, in fear that I will go home and be subjected to another 20-30 plays of it :(

On a tangent, that ad was such a terrible missed opportunity.

Here you have scored this exclusive deal with this impossible international crossover genius comedic rapper, and you sell a pretty delicious product, and all you can think of is a 1950s-style cutesy celebrity endorsement format. Ending with a very pre-Don-Draper, wink-and-a-fake-smile, generic-celebrity-worshipping closer "If Psy does it, we all go nuts."

I really liked Gangnam Style the first 30 times, and I enjoy Wonderful's pistachios, but this was perhaps the most unimaginative intersection of the two possible.

....and you just said the manufacturer's name on a unrelated forum, so their ad campaign was a success.

So it's impossible to discuss unsuccessful ad campaigns, as doing so immediately makes them successful?

If you're thinking/talking about the ad campaign, it wasn't unsuccessful. The unsuccessful ones are forgotten.

Funny, i'd seen that ad a dozen times and up until now i had no idea who made the ad.

this is the absolute worst, along with turned up volume for commercials it's pure evil. if there is a hell, i am sure it will be filled with repetitive commercials breaks.

if i remember watching tv at my parrents, the regular tv networks do the same thing right? my best guess is that they did some psychological studies and such repetition is necessary to program your brain with "WANT ARBY'S SANDWICH"

Hulu's CPM's are incredibly high, on par with prime time TV. Not that many companies advertise on TV at those rates; even fewer do so online.

Huh. OK, then it surprises me that they charge so much. I guess they're selling their ad space, though? (Hence it being sensible for them to charge such a high CPM rate.)

No, no, no. That's not what I meant, sorry if it wasn't clear.

The point isn't that they're buying Hulu for its original programming. It's that if they want to become a major player in the original content space, they'll need a huge user base to start with. For that, they need licensed content.

In other words, my thesis is that TV networks can be disrupted by someone else making original content and distributing it over the web, but the disruptor will need a big number of users to make this possible. It's much easier to get that big user base with licensed content.

Whether it makes sense for Yahoo to be in the studio and production business is another question!

Netflix seems to be doing better at this model. But I'd agree the more competition as we can have in the space, the better.

But this is only buying an extremely limited license to content. Its a catch 22 the only reason Hulu has had any success is because its had premium content provided by its current owners. If Hulu goes independent the content rights are likely not getting renewed at their current rates.

Note that there were rumors that Google already made an overture to buy Hulu at a price rumored to be 2x the current price but with much longer licensing terms and were turned down.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/google-dish-made-highe...

Unless Yahoo wants to focus more on original programming for Hulu (a strategy I'm behind) then buying it for its current content rights is a fools bet.

House of Cards is great though.

Yep, I love Netflix and loved every second of House of Cards! Although I have the opposite issue with Netflix. Lack of constantly added content makes their library feel stale at times, while every time I hit hulu.com it pops up with a list of shows with a "NEW EPISODE!" badge. Keeps you going back!

Two words: back catalog. My Netflix queue doesn't go shorter, no matter how I try (both DVD and streaming). Sometimes I feel like a kind in a candy store, when drilling down their recommendations.

Man the "same 4 advertisements over-and-over-and-over" bothered the hell out of me as well. If you're going to do video ads, I'm fine with it, really, just don't make me listen to the same ones over and over for months.

Right now yes. In the future, who knows.

It doesn't seem like this would go away though. Each of the big streamers are building a specific base set of streamable content.

Amazon is focused on newer films more so than Netflix and Hulu.

Hulu is focused on new television content, with some original programming from overseas shows mostly.

Netflix is focused on older television and movie content, with stronger original programming.

HBO Go will be new movies and strong original content.

Right now there is certainly room for all of these services... I think in the future its highly likely we'll see other channels make a stronger stream crossover (like Comedy Central, Food Network, ESPN, etc..) and we'll basically have content streaming channels. In that world, Netflix, Amazon and HBO GO are still strong, but Hulu might start loosing content or have stronger competition, and that could be problematic.

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