Blowing My Mind: Custom Clips on Hulu

by Andrew Meyer on February 20, 2008

Wow. Hulu’s “Create a Custom Clip” tool blows my mind.

I don’t know why I didn’t discover this tool earlier. Does anyone know how long it has been available?

For those that don’t know Hulu is NBC Universal and News Corporations’ (Fox etc) online video site. You can go there to watch full-length TV shows (old and new), full-length movies, TV clips and movie trailers etc.

I use the site on a regular basis since I recently switched from normal TV to online TV only (read more about my switch here).

Back to Hulu’s mind-blowing “Create a Custom Clip” tool.

I was watching Conan O’Brien last night and Brooklyn-based Yeasayer was the music guest. They had a great set, which you can see embedded below.

After the episode I got off my couch and went to close my browser tab.

That’s when I noticed the “Create a Custom Clip” tool. It lets you quickly place start and end times for the clip you want and than it lets you embed the clip on your site or blog.

Check it out:

hulu custom clip tool

How cool is that? I haven’t seen that feature on any other video sites big or small. I will definitely be using it to share funny scenes I watch on 30 Rock or top notch music guests I see on Conan.

Here is the Yeasayer clip on Conan:

Update: When you try to re-embed someone’s custom clip it re-embeds the whole TV show/movie. Hulu needs to change that asap. It will hurt the viral component of custom clips.

You can get more in-depth info on Hulu over on CrunchBase:

  • I love the internet.

    No, seriously could you have imagined this tool a few years ago even? If so you are more imaginative than I am because I couldn't.

    lol @ Yeasayer
  • Yo Andrew,

    Oddly enough, I went to High School with these Yeasayer -- well, at least Chris (lead singer) and Anand (bass). I woke up this morning to a flurry of emails that they made it on Conan. I have an EP that they made in High School that I can throw your way, if you'd like.

    The custom clip stuff is pretty cool. I'm going to send this video around. Thanks for the continued linkages to CrunchBase.
  • Henry, throw that EP at me as soon as you can. That would be f-ing awesome.


    btw: CrunchBase is turning into a real beast. Congrats!


    btw2: for some reason the embed option at the end of the custom clip is for the whole episode.

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