unique

I’ve found that living on my own, in my own apartment, I’ve had to give up some things I used to consume. I’ve changed to an unknown brand of cereal, in fact I’ve changed my eating habbits entirely to suit my budget. I try to stick to breakfast + one more meal a day, and when grocery shopping, it takes me forever to get through the store because I simply can’t get enought of comparing prices and looking at measurments. That’s the poor-student-way!

Another thing I’ve had to learn how to live without (at least until I have enought money to buy one) is a TV. No, that’s right. I do not own a television. So in order for me to stay in touch with the world as far as presidential debates and crutial tv shows, I’ve had to be creative, and that’s really what living on your own is all about.

My friend told me about this great website called Hulu.com
It’s an online TV service that offers tv shows, movies, and clips for free. They were founded in 2007 by NBC Universal and NewsCorp but is operated independantly from managers in Los Angeles, New York, and Bejing. In October of 2007, Hulu closed a $100 million investment from Providence Equity Partners, which is a private equity firm.

On their website they say that their content is:

“To bring together a large selection of videos from more than 100 content providers, including FOX, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. and more. Users can choose from more than 900 current primetime TV hits such as The Simpsons, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Office the morning after they air, classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The A Team, Airwolf and Married…with Children, movies like Men in Black, Ghostbusters, and The Karate Kid, and clips from Saturday Night Live, Friends and other popular TV shows and movies.”  

Besides the wide selection of shows, current news, and movies, Hulu is so easy to use. You don’t have to download any software, you can customize your own viweing experience, you can watch what ever when ever, and you don’t have to pay a single dime to use it. It’s totally legal.

Now, I’m of course no the only one praising Hulu. They’ve been featured in many different medias and here is what the press is saying:

Los Angeles Times:
“In a very short time, Hulu has rocketed from nothing to being one of the top video destinations on the Internet …You could spend hours rolling around in there, as I did over a few days recently, and just scratch the surface.”

Time magazine:
“Hulu … is a gorgeous piece of interface design laid over a technically very sweet video player.”

Chicago Tribune:
“If the point of television is watching TV shows rather than watching shows on a TV… then it’s hard not to think of Hulu and what will follow in its wake as a revolution, untelevised.”