Competitive Analysis: Hulu

As an avid user of streaming platforms, I took advantage of this assignment for my De Anza course, Business & Requirements Analysis (CIS 95H), to combine my passion for movies and shows with an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) market. At the time that I wrote this competitive analysis report, I was already a subscriber and user of Hulu, Netflix, Disney+ Streaming Services, and HBO Max. As a result, I had the advantage of knowing how these products have evolved over time. 

One feature I was most elated about is the picture-in-picture capability which minimizes a video screen allowing users to simultaneously stream and view content while using other applications – excluding applications which required camera and/or microphone access. Prior to this, I used to access other mobile applications while playing the audio for streaming content without viewing the video. This was useful for me because of my habit as a user to watch the same shows repeatedly, namely Friends and Community. I had never viewed the lack of viewing access as a pain point, but when the feature became available on Netflix and HBO Max, I realized that it was a major value proposition when comparing streaming platforms.

Netflix was the first streaming platform I used which had this capability on the Windows desktop application, but this was not yet available on the mobile app. In September 2020, HBO Max became the first streaming platform that I subscribed to which had this capability on the mobile app. Shortly thereafter, the Netflix mobile application also implemented this feature. 

By writing this competitive analysis report, I researched historical trends in the SVoD market and gained a deeper understanding of the market and video streaming products. The full competitive analysis report can be found here.

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For those who are not familiar with the minimized viewer product, I created and included images of the mobile and desktop viewers on HBO Max and Netflix respectively. Some features of this product include the ability to enlarge and minimize the viewer to even larger or smaller than shown below . The size of the minimized desktop viewer has the additional capabilities of allowing users to "Skip Intro" because it has more screen real estate. In comparison, the minimized mobile viewer does not have this feature; however, the remaining features (i.e. skip forward or backward at 10/15 second intervals, pause and play, expand to full-screen, close viewer and application) are the same. If these viewers are visible on a screen when screenshotted, the video image is replaced with black, but the viewer is still visible; this is a clever security and privacy measure to prevent users from screenshotting or screen recording copyrighted content.