When I was a kid, I remember rushing home after school to watch my favorite cartoons like He-Man and Thundercats (I had a big brother so I rarely watched girly stuff). If I didn't make it home in time, I wouldn't catch the beginning of the show - or I might miss it altogether! Those were the days before we had cable TV and we only had 6 or so channels to choose from and we had to actually get up and walk to the TV to change the channel because we didn't have a fancy-schmancy "clicker." Eventually, we got cable TV and later a VCR. Finally, we could record things and watch them whenever we wanted - as long as we remembered to put in a blank tape and set the VCR to record. Fast-forward to adulthood and TiVo. Oh, how I have loved my TiVo! But TiVo still depends on the show actually being aired and recorded for me to see it. What if I want to watch something that I heard about from a friend and didn't get my TiVo set up to record it in time? Or what if I don't want to wait for an episode to air on TV and want to see it now? Well, I can with Hulu [2]!
Hulu has a LOT of TV shows - old and new - available for streaming from its website. And its search functionality searches more than just Hulu - so when I search for "thundercats," I'll still find episodes even though they're on AOL instead of Hulu.
Hulu has a bit of an interesting history, so if you'd like to learn more about how this service came about, check out these articles:
"Free, Legal and Online: Why Hulu is the New Way to Watch TV" (Wired.com) [3]
"Why Hulu Succeeded as Other Video Sites Failed" (New York Times) [4]
Image: © Jupiterimages Corp.
- online [5]
- streaming video [6]
- tv [7]
- Website [8]
- website [9]
