YouTube moves to counter Hulu by offering full-length movies and shows
Mark Cuban says Hulu is kicking ass because of a simple marketing device: The NBC and News Corp.-backed site is advertising full-length programs on YouTube to get traffic to shows on which they can sell real advertising. YouTube, rather than ban Hulu, is now angling to keep that traffic in-house by allowing partners to upload shows up to 1 gigabyte in size, enough room for full-length film and television programming (though not at great quality).
While YouTube has hosted videos over ten minutes in the past, notably including feature film Four Eyed Monsters, in-house Google videos and Charles Trippy's longest YouTube video ever stunt, and early content partners have had the freedom to push the envelope from time to time. But now it's official, and it's certainly in the hopes of garnering better content, running more ads and pumping up "engagement" metrics like average time on site.