We’ve known for a while about the joint video venture between News Corporation and NBC Universal.

This coupling had earned a valuation of $1 billion, even though it had yet to be named since it was announced in March.

Well, now a decision has been reached. In news that is well overdue, NBC and News Corp. have now announced an official name for their joint venture.

Hulu

It’s four letters that took five months to create. It sounds a little funny, but I think that the goal was a short, easy-to-remember name.

Not, only does it have a name, but Hulu also now has a website, which is complete with the ability to sign up for an invite to the private beta (yes, they will be starting off Joost style).

NFL Football is right around the corner. DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket has always been a popular item with football fans in the U.S. Now subscribers to Sunday Ticket will be able to watch football games over the Internet.

So what do you need to watch streaming football games at your computer? First of all, you need to buy Sunday Ticket satellite package for $269. Then, you need to pay an additional $99 for the right to stream that video. Total price is $368. Ouch!

I can honestly say that I am not going to purchase non-HD streaming video for almost $400. I think a Slingbox is a much better solution if you have to watch football games over the web.

The NFL should take a page from MLB.TV, the great baseball streaming service from Major League Baseball. MLB.TV costs $99 for the entire season. That is 162 games for every team. On the other hand, sixteen football games for almost $400 seems like a bargain, right?

YouTube is now starting to run embedded adverts in videos on the site, after the announcement a couple of weeks ago.

I have already discussed how the InVideo ads will ultimately fail, so what can Google do to turn the hugely popular video site YouTube in to a money maker like text ads?

Here are a few of my ideas to make it possible:-

Related Video Clicks

Create a cost per click model on the recommended videos users face at the end of a clip and right side viewer. Mixing in a few relevant videos from sponsors ensures YouTube has the viewers full attention since they initiated the action rather than having the ad forced upon them. 

By charging advertisers for every click that comes off of other videos, similar to links from sponsored ads on AdSense, Google can leverage what they know best: connecting people with the content they are looking for.

Answer one question for me: How do you currently prefer to watch television?

As it comes, either over the airwaves or via a cable based system? Perhaps instead you like to record your favorite shows to watch at a later date after they first broadcast?

How about on-demand, by way of a download process, via good ol’ Internet Protocol?

The last scenario is likely to be the least favored by the average individual. Nonetheless, it’s the model put forth as the soon-to-be “next big thing” by Google’s Vint Cerf.  

Yep, one of the guys responsible for getting the Net up and running in the first place.

And Mr Cerf’s putting an emphasis on soon.

BitTorrent uses the P2P architecture but build upon it while blurring the already unclear legal lines.

The growth in the popularity of the BitTorrent protocol has lead to bandwidth limitations by ISPs, and legal action from the MPAA.

With that said, it should come as no surprise that TorrentSpy, a popular torrent search directory, has now begun to block all searches originating from within the United States.

The service was named in the February 2006 lawsuit by the Motion Picture Association, but it was not until this June when the tension started building. 

That’s when a federal judge ordered the site to begin tracking users as possible evidence in “a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by a handful of movie studios and the MPAA.“

Google have added the ability to upload videos to Blogger, their free blogging service. The additional feature to the service was added as part of a series of updates last week.

These were mainly to resolve a technical problem with the blog publishing and hosting service. 

Publishers who use Blogger had been experiencing trouble performing various editing and posting operations last Monday and Tuesday. Google was quick to notice and repair this issue, as it was no longer a concern by Wednesday.

Last week during Sony’s press conference at the Leipzig Games Convention, Sony’s President and Chief Executive Officer of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, David Reeves, dropped some giant TV shaped bombs on a largely unsuspecting crowd.

PlayTV - PS3 with Digital TV in Europe

The first was PlayTV for the PS3. Essentially via a slightly ugly but easy to tuck away box that you use to link your PS3 to your signal receiver/cable etc, the PS3 will be able to display live TV from any of the hundreds of free digital channels available throughout Europe.

Not only that, but the service will come complete with its own interface which although slightly grey and austere, looks very intuitive and not altogether different from that of Sky+.

PlayTV also includes seven day scheduling so that you can check what is coming over the next while as well as support for HDTV as and when HD signals begin broadcasting on the continent.