Hulu Launching on Wednesday

Hulu, the online video site created by NBC Universal and Fox, will officially launch on Wednesday, according to today's Wall Street Journal. The article, along with other commentary I've read today, is more focused on poking holes in Hulu, noting that the site still only contains programs from NBC, Fox, and limited content from SonyPictures and MGM. The site still has no content from Viacom's CBS or from Disney's ABC. Other commentary criticizes NBC and Fox for establishing an exclusive site like Hulu in a time in which widespread syndication is the norm. Still others comment that Hulu can't stack up against the popularity of Google's YouTube. This to me is a strange argument, as YouTube and Hulu offer diametrically different programming.

In the end, I do anticipate that Web video viewers will gravitate to well-organized video sites that offer both the premium content that they're seeking and a hassle-free experience. With NBC and Fox behind the initiative, you can bet that the advertising is also going to be of higher quality. From my experience with Hulu, I've found it to be a well-organized site in which I don't have to search endlessly for the program I want to watch.