NBC Hulu Prototype

My initial hire at NBC Universal was as a member of a small team assigned to explore ways to monetize online video content. This was the very early days of YouTube and NBC’s video content, in particular Satruday Night Live was being openly shared on the social network. You may remember this one particular SNL video called “D*** in a Box” video which featured Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg (very funny you should take a look [link]). This video aired on Saturday night and by Monday morning had been viewed by over 8 million users. As you can imagine this proved to be a strong motivator for NBC to find ways to monetize this type of interaction. Our team began to develop the video player technology needed to accomplish this including devising keyframes that would become pre-roll video which could be sold as placement for advertisement and metadata APIs drawn from collaboration with TV Guide and other sources. The work evolved over a year or two into several prototypes and eventually would become what we know today as Hulu.  One of the prototypes which I initiated was the prototype you see here.  It is a spinning three-dimensional garden of videos which delivered in a creative way the user experience requirements we defined as a team.