Hulu Category
NBC Direct launched its public beta yesterday, and the blogosphere was immediately awash with thoughts on the service and reviews of what it is offering.
Most of these, or at least the ones I have read, were on the negative side, mainly because NBC have seen fit to build so many prohibitions and limitations in, that NBC Direct becomes a pointless exercise.
Only For Americans
To use the NBC Direct service, you first need to be in the US, which I’m not, so that rules me out straight away. Like Hulu and The Daily Show Archives before it, licensing and rights management mean only people currently resident in America can access the videos on offer.
I know licensing is important, but that doesn’t make me, as a Brit, sitting here wanting to watch episodes of Heroes, and The Office, feel any better about being effectively banned from access.
Although it makes sense from a short term business aspect, surely companies such as Fox and NBC realise that for internet television and video on demand to continue growing, the world needs to be in on it, not just one country.
That’s surely the whole point of the web, to be a global community, with no borders or barriers placed on it.
