This morning news broke that NBC Universal and News Corporation’s joint video venture, hitherto dubbed “Clown Co.”, is now to be known as Hulu.
Initially, I was a bit concerned that this could be merely a hoax, as no press releases were sent out by NBC or News Corp. themselves. However, after speaking with the Hulu representative, Christina Lee, and seeing the news spread across the circuit like vine, it does appear as though this announcement is authentic.
The Hulu website, shown above, simply solicits email addresses for a private beta to be launched in October. There is also an open letter from CEO Jason Kilar explaining the choice of “hulu” as a name: “Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we’re building.”
Jason goes on to explain that the private beta will initially involve only a small number of people but will grow with time. Distribution partner sites will include AOL, Comcast, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo.
With Hulu, NBC and News Corp. now have two placeholder video websites intended to eventually challenge YouTube, the other being Didja, a website for entertaining commercials.
Our previous coverage of Clown Co., er Hulu, can be found below:
- Wow – Clown Co. Got That $1 billion Valuation (still nameless though)
- Dear Clown Co.: Name This Thing Fast Before It’s Too Late
- News Corp, NBC May Announce Distributed YouTube Competitor Today; Google Scoffs
Thanks for the tip and help Jon Burg and Allen Stern.
Update: Hulu is set to launch in the Fall around October and will focus on professional content and not take on YouTube directly as a viral video destination. The site remains solely an enterprise of the Fox/NBC joint venture, which raised over $100 million in financing from Providence Equity Partners. Videos will be played in their own embeddable branded player.
wonder how much the domain name cost them !
I’m interested to see how NBC will handle a social site like this. How corporate can they make it without making it too corporate. This will definitely be interesting to keep an eye on.
Looks like it used to be a personal website http://72.14.25...cd=1&gl=us
Yeah, I did that IP trace and it looks like it used to be a privately owned address.
From what I’ve gathered they are looking at Hulu as a central site with content syndicated across the web via select syndication partners. Content will be professional and mostly analog media content ported over onto digital.
At least as of a few months ago, advertising can be bought in any number of ways. It can be bought as a part of a traditional media buy, through the syndication partner, or through Hulu. Unless you are doing a buy as an extension of a specific program, you’re buying by genre, not by program.
As I stated before, the information around advertising is a few months old and may have changed. Additionally, it should be noted, that at least as of then (a few months back) NewCo/NewSite/Hulu was running with a select group of beta partner advertisers and all positions had been filled. Once they have delivered on those partnerships they would be opening the doors to additional advertisers.
Hulu rhymes with: voodoo, hullabaloo, hoodlum, etc. Pile on.
Worst domain name for a company with more than $100 million dollars behind it. Closest mental association is the hawaiian term hula. And anything Hawaiian has an ‘out there’ connotation. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 4. With YouTube being a 10.
To me, it comes down to, will they let 3rd party websites like Digg embed their videos. Without that functionality, the site will not have any syndication traffic. The first YouTube video I saw, was not on a YouTube site.
I give this a negative infinity out of 10, with YouTube being a 10. Laughable.
all depends on what content they get
The real question is will anyone actually watch the videos when they go live?
“Who lieu”? As in “…What or who, in lieu of didja, did you expect Clown Co. to do?”
If this is a NBC site, why are there a bunch of FOX shows (Family Guy, American Dad, MAD TV, etc.) on the site?
Doesn’t everything rhyme with itself?
@David – it’s a joint venture between NBC and Fox
I have a feeling that viral video sites achieved a great deal of attention because they were really easy ways of consuming a wide variety of video online (including copyrighted content).
Hulu may steal viewership from these sites if they deliver professional quality content in a comparably easy to use manner. Hopefully they realize they’re competing with the ease of use offered by video pirates online.
The name “Hulu” was chosen because it is cute gibberish and follows in rigid lock-step with the cargo cult of Web 2.0 aesthetics.
Sounds like a good time for domainers to start buying Hawaiian sounding names like mahalo, wik etc. Although “surfing the web” could arguably be a uniquely Hawaiian experience for some.
Is this a hoax? http://www.cavenger.com is better, it’s got Entourage, let’s see Hulu beat that
Hulu is not a hawaiian word. Hulu is an indonesian word and it refers to the origin of a river or stream.
the domain name is not that bad, that’s not to imply though i like it.
hulu sounds like a web2 name for either a women’s or kids’ community site though, more than a video site.
i highly doubt nbc paid the previous owner of hulu.com more than 10K
This is not a hoax. I have confirmed this with Hulu, Fox and MSN.
I’ve been trying to find a word that doesn’t rhyme with itself.
You guys or Dorks. You see one screen shot and make stupid comments. Oh wait, you’re all experts. ( puke)
You guys are Dorks. You see one screen shot and make stupid comments. Oh wait, you’re all experts. ( puke)
any news other than the name change? is the name that matters most?
so many 2.0 startups with cute names went burst while ugilest name TechCrunch is doing well
Dominic,
I second that. Wait, no, you did it yourself. Ass.
I think Hulu is a good idea. They are giving top tier content to viewers, and keeping the videos professional. I am not so hot on the name personally, but we will see how things unfold.
The first thing that came to mind when I heard “Hulu” was “Mahalo” and that is not a good thing to be associated with.
They should have bought clownco.com
This will succeed and why??? Because they own ALL the content that people want. Other video sites will become second class citizens only having crappy home videos that you browse for a good laugh and that’s about it.
I liked the name “Clown Co.” as reflected on my coverage of it this morning. Oh well… Hulu it is. I’m sure it will grow on people unless everyone pushes “Clown Co.” – which IMHO is a better branded name already thanks to TC and everyone else!
Rex
I hope they bring on board the MySpace design team.
I think hulu sounds a bit like “who knew”. Which makes me think, who knew they were going to suck this bad and who knew it was going to be so good.
@21. Seth: Have you thought about Orange? I have yet to find a rhyming word that rhymes with Orange.
Just don’t translate it into Swahili.
http://www.tech...i-oh-the-irony/
I will sell them want.tv for $1M, maybe i could get a $50m valuation just on the name
In the ancient Ethiopian language of Geez (and modern day Ethiopian language of Amharic), hulu means “all”, “all of it”, “all of them”.
Please go to:
http://www.Amha...cDictionary.com
and type in “All” in the first search field and click on the “Search” button. The first translation that comes up is “Hulu”.
Funny name!
Reminds of a danish TV channel that started years ago named Zulu. Everyone thought it was a pretty lame name, but their profile was so different and fresh from the other TV channels that it seems like a very natural name today. And one of the shows they started airing was named “klovn” which means clown.
Just a little anecdote.
the word means a sound in Chinese
sounds like a good name
i like it
From beginning to end… a recipe for disaster. Here’s hoping that money can make up for passion, insight, ingenuity, inspiration and drive… ooohhh, just like snapple.
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If we’re talking word association, I can do you all one better. In Finnish, the word “hullu” means “crazy.” How about that!
I think it’s a great name!
In getting to the name News Corp had to actually acquire a family’s photo site at hulu.com.
Will the Internet majors go even further to secure the names that they are looking for? For further analysis check out:
http://sneakybu...rdoch-afte.html
I cant believe that nbc actually thinks this will work. Im going to download ALL of my NBC shows for free .I started purchasing them only when they were on I tunes .Now i will never ever buy another episodes from such a backward thinking company . LOOSERS.And im going to sell your cheap ass stock .
Proverb.
Always it is necessary to measure two times and then to cut.