14 DAY TRIAL // Some time ago, NBC and News Corporation announced their plans to build a very powerful video sharing platform that would compete with YouTube and target the same category of users. After so many battles won by Google's video platform, nobody thought that it would ever be possible to steal YouTube's first place but the two allies are now prepared to join the battle. NBC and News Corp introduced Hulu, a new video website that is currently available as a private beta, being scheduled for public release in March 2008. What's most interesting is that Hulu will provide one click access to exclusive video content such as 'My Name is Earl', 'The Simpsons', 'The Office', 'Friday Night Lights' and several other TV series.
"Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we're building. Our hope is that Hulu will embody our (admittedly ambitious) never-ending mission, which is to help you find and enjoy the world's premier content when, where and how you want it," Jason Kilar, CEO at Hulu, wrote in a blog post according to Red Herring.
If you're asking yourself where the Hulu name comes from, then you should know that it is a mixture of a company's name and an idea which came from its employees.
At this time, Hulu is not available for the public but starting October, the service will be opened only to the registered members. Moreover, the Hulu videos will be also distributed on several web portals including Yahoo, MSN and AOL, the same source reports. Personally, I don't think that YouTube feels the threat these days but, as the Hulu launch date gets closer, the folks working at the YouTubeplex might decide to come with something to get the audience back on their video sharing service.