Prodigal Hulu Finally Opens Up!

Please, do try and look surprised, act like you didn’t know this was coming and sigh with relief: Hulu is finally coming out of limited beta testing and onto our computers tomorrow, the company announced one day ahead. Take that, spammers ‘giving away’ access to the video site, you’re running out of business. If only that were true, but they’ll find some other thing to trick internauts into having their computers infested.

After a prolonged wait of about four and a half months, the site will be opened to US users, with no date for when the rest of the world will be able to use the service. The initial program will include full-length episodes of more than 250 TV series from current hits, as well as older ones (care to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer stake a claim in the creatures of the night’s hearts again?). Some 100 movies will be available as well, such as The Big Lebowski and Mulholland Drive. I don’t know about you, but I’m anxious to see Red Hot Chilly Peppers’ Flea having his arse kicked with a bowling ball. Some more content not in the initial announcement has been announced, as Hulu signed licensing deals with the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League. Sports fans, this must have gotten your attention peaking, hasn’t it?

The site, repeatedly and annoyingly called a YouTube killer, will have its shows distributed on AOL, Comcast Corp’s Fancast.com, Microsoft Corp’s MSN, News Corp’s MySpace and Yahoo! Inc, to name those interested so far that have signed the deals.

Back to the name Hulu has been called, my honest opinion is that with the two services focusing mostly on totally different audiences and content, there won’t be any competition, save for the time spent on each, where Hulu will clearly have the upper hand with its hour-long (at least) shows. People go to YouTube mostly for user-generated content, and to the soon-to-be-launched startup for professional content, it’s dead simple.

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