Hulu launches to the public today which means anyone can join and you no longer need an invite!

Hulu is a joint venture by NBC Universal and News Corp to create a single location where you can watch “premium content” for free. (previous article here) This well-designed site is supported through periodic video advertisement breaks, however there is only one ad during each break as opposed to 4+ on regular TV, that means 75% less advertisements! The ads they do play are short and pretty unobtrusive, making for an enjoyable experience.

Check them out, it’s Free to join!

Technorati Tags: videos,, hulu,, fox,, nbc

Fox and NBC joined forces, a new venue for watching the hottest television shows opening to the public soon!

March 2007, News Corporation (FOX’s parent company) and NBC Universal joined together and began developing their own ‘YouTube‘. The difference, hulu will feature premium video content including TV shows, movies and short clips rather than the user generated content shown on YouTube.

Watch shows like Prison Break, The Office, Saturday Night Live, The Simpson and Heroes online, on-demand and as often as you like. You’ll also find shows and movies from many other cable channels like Bravo, FX, G4, National Geographic, Versus, Sony and E! Entertainment. hulu is free of charge and supported through advertisements, BUT with only 2 minutes of ads for every 22 minutes worth of content. The ads are also shown as single 15-30 second ads making them relatively unobtrusive.

The hulu player has some excellent features that make the viewing experience very comfortable. You can watch the videos in full screen mode or in a pop-out window allowing you to place the video anywhere on your screen and resize it to your liking. A “lower lights” feature mutes the white space of your browser window so it’s easier on your eyes. Here’s a quick view of the hulu player with the “lower lights” feature on, you can see the area above and below the video has a opaque gray overlay.

Hulu has also made it easy to embed the videos on your own website, You can even create embeddable clips from any portion of a video. Below is a sample clip created from an SNL Democratic Debate skit:

My first impressions of hulu have been great. The video quality is decent, the interface is easy to use and there is quite a lot of content available. The only thing that bugs me is you can’t view full length episodes for every season. The number of full length episodes and the number of seasons they go back is dependent on a show by show basis.For more hulu info check out the company profile from CrunchBase, read the recent Forbes article or check out the latest from TechCrunch.

At this time hulu is currently in private beta so you are not able to create an account without an invite. I do have 10 invites to give out if would like to get access early. Just drop me an email from the contact page and I’ll send you an invite.

Technorati Tags: hulu, videos, fox, nbc

Improv Everywhere is at it again with their latest stunt, Frozen Grand Central. Previously, around 200 people shopped in slow motion at a Home Depot in Manhattan. This time 200+ people froze in place at the exact second in Grand Central Station. Watching the reactions of the passer byers as they try to figure out what’s going on is great, take a look for yourself in the video below.

Check out the Improv Everywhere website to see other missions that caused public scenes.

Technorati Tags: ImprovEverywhere, GrandCentral, video