Hulu offers current primetime shows like The Office, Prison Break, Bionic Woman, House and Bones, and episodes from TV classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Miami Vice, Arrested Development and more. We’ve also partnered with premier content owners like E! Entertainment, FUEL TV, SciFi Network and USA Networks to add to our growing collection of premium programming.

Viewing
I watched a variety of shows in Firefox on both Mac and Ubuntu Linux with no issues whatsoever. Your mileage will vary based on bandwidth and video support, but everything was smooth in my testing using Comcast broadband. All the standard viewing options are there with the inclusion of a “lower lights” feature. Turning this option on dims the background around the video clip in the browser for easier viewing.

Sharing
Hulu is somewhat of an anomaly for a large media company like NBC. With all the notoriety they’ve received for blocking videos on YouTube and copyright infringements, Hulu strongly supports video sharing. The embed feature enables users to share the video on their own website. Hulu even has the option to let users create heir own video clips of shows they’re watching.

High Definition
Hulu also recently announced the launch of high definition video clips in their HD Gallery. The selection is currently limited, but I expect the content to grow as rapidly as the rest of the site.

Risks
After pulling its content from the iTunes store and moving to Amazon, NBC appears to have a lot more riding on Hulu’s success. There still seems to be a conflict though – why would I purchase a video on Amazon Unbox when I can stream it for free via Hulu or via NBC.com itself? The main advantage to Amazon Unbox is obtaining a downloaded file that is owned and portable versus streamed content. With more people watching full TV shows online, I’m not so sure the downloadable model is the winning choice.

I occasionally buy movies and will watch them again over time. With television, though, I rarely watch repeats. I don’t save shows that I’ve taped and subsequently watched on my DVR. Streaming TV shows makes a lot of sense, especially after I’ve already turned to ABC.com and NBC.com to watch some episodes of shows I’ve missed over the past year.

While this isn’t frequent behavior, with advanced services that make it easier to watch TV over the web, I can see myself relying more of these types of services.

Hulu appears to be a success. As the begin to add more users to the beta, we’ll start to see how they handle scaling issues. The bigger questions is whether they’re too late to the game. Without available options, many have been relying on torrents, YouTube, and other “unapproved” sources of these videos. Will these users switch their viewing habits?

I didn’t see any press releases on the Technorati site with regards to the WSJ feature nor the Washington Post one earlier. I wonder if these are trials to see the response and if so, what the metrics for success are for each. How many readers are actually clicking through to find more related stories written by bloggers?

More than five million people have flocked to CBS Corp.’s Web site to watch March Madness college-basketball games free online. For that, they and a growing number of sports fans world-wide owe some thanks to the entrepreneurial efforts of another sports leader, Major League Baseball.

It’s one of the more unlikely stories of Internet-inspired business evolution: In just a few years, Major League Baseball’s Web site (www.mlb.com) has become a major force in providing live streaming video — the equivalent of live television on a computer — for large audiences. MLB.com’s success isn’t just helping to transform the business of sports; it’s also transforming consumers’ expectations of what the Web can deliver.

MLB.com first mastered the technology to show baseball games live on its own site, itself a wildly popular business. Now, it sells its expertise, having already signed up 25 clients, including CBS, Major League Soccer and the World Championship Sports Network. Entertainers Jimmy Buffett and LL Cool J, too, have hired MLB.com to promote albums and concerts by streaming video of interviews and live performances.

Additionally, MLB.com says 15% of its total revenue last year came from these types of deals.

Zucker said he was considering a blog for Williams and could envision a similar blog for Katie Couric, the co-host of NBC’s “Today” show. He noted that the morning program hadn’t changed its format much in more than a decade.

Does anyone really care? Will the fact that these two have a blog make me want to seek out NBC for news and information? I think not. This is a perfect case of big media jumping on the bandwagon. And if it’s not painfully obvious, way late I might add.

Sploid is a news site with a tabloid mentality — top stories up top, played big, as fast as they break. If there’s a political line, it’s anarcho-capitalist: sniffing out hypocrisy and absurdity, whether from salon left or religious right.

It looks like a tabloid and reads like a tabloid, so its not really my cup of tea. But it is interesting to watch how blogs continue to evolve and the different niches they’re filling.

I’m not sure they have the site optimized for the Firefox browser though. When I view the site a large square Vonage ad is being covered up by the Sploid logo. I doubt that was their intent. Every refresh is also getting a different size banner ad, very strange.

- iPods/MP3 players are gadgets for the upscale. Fully a quarter (24%) of those who live in households earning more than $75,000 have them; 10% of those living in households earning $30,000 to $75,000 have them and 6% of those living in households earning less than $30,000 have them.

- Those who use the internet are four times as likely as non-internet users to have iPods/MP3 players, probably because internet users can get much of the music they enjoy online. Fully 15% of internet users have iPods/MP3 players, compared to 4% of non-internet users. And the more advanced the internet user, the more likely it is that he has an iPod/MP3 player. Those with six years or more of internet experience are twice as likely to have them as those who are relative internet newbies (those with less than three years experience).

- Broadband access is strongly associated with ownership of iPods/MP3 players. Some 23% of those with broadband at home have iPods/MP3 players, compared to 9% of those who have dialup connections. And those who have broadband access at home and at work, are the most likely of all to have iPods/MP3 players. Almost a third (31%) of those with broadband all around them have iPods/MP3 players.

Additional details can be found here. The study illustrates an impressive market penetration for these devices, but I’d be interested in seeing some trends. Is the market growing? Has it stabilized? I’m especially interested in seeing how digital music player usage correlates with the gains in the satellite radio market. Are these complementary markets or are the mutually exclusive? I own both, but as we’re starting to see convergence, it will be interested to see how it all plays out.

When asked on CNBC why he thought the ad was pulled, Parsons stated that it was the NFL censoring GoDaddy’s parody of censorship stemming from last year’s Super Bowl half time show controversy. Watching the commercial, I have to agree with Parsons as this is the only rationale that makes any sense. Fox reviewed the commercial two weeks in advance. In addition, the ad itself was rather tame when compared with standard beer commercials and the coverage of NFL cheerleaders on the sidelines. Honestly, I think the NFL is going overboard here and the league appears hypocritical.

Additional info:
Was the banned Go Daddy Super Bowl ad indecent?

With that point made, it strikes me that none of the coverage on these satellite radio services actually speaks to the music. This point specifically strikes me as significant when there is talk of DirecTV getting into the market. I’ve had DirecTV for years (specifically for the NFL Sunday Ticket to watch my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers) and the service has always provided 30+ digital music channels. In the most generous terms, these channels were bad. I hope there wasn’t any active human intervention in the programming. So, if DirecTV plans on entering this business, I surely hope they have plans to upgrade their current music offerings. For this nascent industry’s sake, I hope a little more emphasis is placed on the music.