Hulu was launched as a private beta earlier this week, and immediately provoked a ream of blog space dedicated to it. 

Rather than talking about Hulu, I wanted to revisit the very similar Fancast, a hybrid entertainment portal from the cable service provider.

It’s what Hulu (and its partnership with Comcast) reminded me of.

Back in August when I reviewed Fancast, I admired it and described it as “web 2.0 meets IMDB meets TV Guide” for its comprehensive database of movies and television shows that also provided viewers with TV listings in an effort to help visitors decide what to watch each day on television.

Just as expected, my visit to the Fancast homepage today revealed that full episodes of several shows are now available from a variety of television networks.

YouTube is now at the centre of a murder case, after commenters on the video sharing site named the alleged killer of schoolboy Rhys Jones.

Rhys, 11, was gunned down in Croxteth Park, Liverpool on August 22nd. Although 18 people have so far been arrested over the shooting, no-one has been charged with the crime.

Now police may have a new lead after a commenter named a teenage boy, already a prime suspect, on YouTube.

The comment appeared under a four minute video of Liverpool street gang members brandishing guns. The video has now been removed, but police are investigating the allegation attached to it.

Hulu has finally launched, well sort of at least. The joint venture between NBC and News Corp. that some thought would be a YouTube competitor, has at least given some of the chosen few in Silicon Valley a look at the service. 

As far as I can tell from most descriptions of it, it sounds like a video-distribution network that will compete more with Brightcove and other similar video services than it will with YouTube.

In other words, it has nothing to do with “user-generated content” or people uploading video — it’s all about network content from NBC and News Corp., distributed through a Flash player that can be embedded on other sites and will be white-labeled to partners such as AOL and MySpace. 

I doubt anyone has actually forgotten about Hulu, but it may be worth looking back over the mixed history it has had so far as it has now finally launched with a private beta. 

It is the joint venture between News Corp. and NBC Universal that was announced in March, unnamed until the end of August, and delayed from a September private beta launch until now, the end of October. 

As expected, the online video service launched today to a limited crowd of private beta testers, and dare I say it actually looks promising.

Hope Over Hype?

Ok… So I haven’t actually tested the service or even received my invite yet, but to see screen shots and information about the service itself and not the company is enough to give me hope for this long-hyped video portal.

Now when accessing the Hulu home page, visitors will find a new logo and a redesigned page with login access for those who have already been invited.

There was further proof this week of the rise in popularity of promoting user generated content to the big time.

An 18 year old English student had his amateur iPod Touch commercial picked up from YouTube and turned in to a bona fide high definition television advert.

Nick Haley, currently a first year student at the University of Leeds, created a homemade advert for the new Apple iPod Touch and casually uploaded it to YouTube, not expecting anything except maybe a few comments and a couple of thousand page views.

Ad Agency Contacted Haley

He did get both of those, but also a lot more, as amongst viewers of the clip were employees at Apple in Cupertino, California, who asked someone from ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day to get in touch with Mr. Haley and ask him to help produce a professional version of the 30 second advert.

The interactive elements of streaming television have yet to be fully realised. With it’s digital elements, it’s easy to incorporate something extra in to the broadcast when it’s web based rather than on television.

Some broadcasters are starting to experiment though, and adding an extra layer to the online TV experience:

The NOS (public broadcaster in the Netherlands) is going to be broadcasting a speed skating championship. Not only on television but also streaming it live on the web.

What is interesting about the website is that the NOS linked the time information to the website in addition to the video stream.

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