Last night I received a happy email: my login info for the new site called Hulu. Hulu.com is a partnership between NBC and Fox (and others) and offers lots of content, mostly TV but a couple of full length movies as well.

It’s free to watch, but there are interstitial ads here and there (although much less annoying than watching regular TV in the US).

There are a few notable differences between this service and previous web sites that offer network content:

1 - Hulu offers video sharing. This is a big deal. In other words, I can embed an episode of The Simpsons on my blog. This is a huge coup for the networks since it can take advantage of the long tail of countless web sites out there, rather than feeding everything through one web site (think YouTube).

2 - Hulu will also allow users to upload videos, directly competing with, um, YouTube.

3 - The viewing interface is beautiful and super user-friendly - for those of you who know me, you’ll remember that I put a lot of value in usability.

Everyone can sign up at hulu.com. As I learn more, I’ll post it. Now to get the “embed” feature to work… wish me luck!