Pre-tax thoughts on Hulu.com, Fast Company and other matters like the new Modernista site

With tax day rapidly approaching, I figured it was time to write a post to my long neglected blog.  If it sounds like I might be procrastinating on finishing my taxes, you’re absolutely correct.  Here are a few things I’ve been thinking about:

I love Hulu.com. Where else can you watch the entire seasons of old favorites? And where else would you be able to watch them in order from the very beginning? And on demand from your computer! without having to go through the horrible Comcast DVR user interface? To be sure, I’d rather check out some old Mary Tyler Moore episodes than have to suffer through another season of American Idol. For one thing, the clothes back then were amazingly fabulous.  

 
Sorry, I digress.  Hulu.com is a lot more than just a retrofest (although if you want to see the very first Lost in Space it’s there), there are plenty of current shows (and movies!) on this site.  In fact, the selection is getting pretty good and it’ll keep getting better over time.  I was happy to see that Joanna Weiss from the Boston Globe has been writing about Hulu too: here and here.  It seems other people like the site too. Let’s hope their growth continues:

 

 

On a different note, I’m still concerned about Fast Company’s social networking site.  And, I’m still waiting for their community manager (if they have one) to send out a friendly email to remind me that they exist – see my original post about community outbound communication here.  Where is the communication??  And, why is the link to their current issue hidden in the lower right corner of the home page below the fold? This month’s issue has Barack Obama on the cover!!!! Don’t they want to sell some magazines or have anyone read their articles?  Sadly, all the while, infinitely less fascinating topics such as “Should I stay at the office late because my colleagues do?, or “If you see one Broadway show this year” get home page status. What do you think? I say Fast Company didn’t get the boost they were expecting from going to a pure social networking site.  Just check out this graph from Compete.  

July 2008 Update: since the graph below is “live” you can see that Fast Company is pulling itself up with a big boost in vistors from May to June.  Hmmm. Very interesting.

 

I’m also concerned about Modernista’s new tactic to redirect their company url to Wikipedia.  Whatever happened to branding? The first thing I did was click on the link from Wikipedia to their old site, which was, by the way, pretty cool.  Sorry, but duh!

Lastly, quite a few people are still coming here to voice their opinions about the WBOS/Radio 92.9 format change. Thanks again to everyone who has commented!