I read an interesting post by Cuban called “Hulu is kicking Youtube’s Ass” where he argues that YouTube’s business model is broken and that Hulu has the only sustainable model going forward. He argues that because Hulu has rights to sell ads on their videos they are doing a much better job in revenue per video and revenue per user. Hulu is gaining momentum. Cuban argues that they might already have more monetizaable users and traffic and that by next year it will have more revenue than YouTube.
These are fighting words but it does lead to a bigger question of whether you can monetize users and self-expresssion. Web 2.0 is all about user created content but if that content is only that and not something that can be monetized – then do you have a big business? Facebook and MySpace have taken shots lately of not being able to monetize their huge traffic.
Almost as if YouTube heard the conversation, they announced today that they are removing the 10 minute limit on their videos for Partners. I could see them getting more into Hulu’s business as time goes on and licenseing more and more content to distribute and sell ads around.
