Congratulations are in order to YouTube-competitor Hulu, which took just five months to come up with a name after announcing itself in March. CEO Jason Kilar says the name “captures the spirit of the service we’re building” in an open letter published today.
Just don’t translate that name to certain languages, because the name may capture significantly more of the spirit of the service than NBC and News Corp., the media giants behind Hulu, intended.
Hulu means “butt” in both Indonesian and Malay. But that’s nothing compared to Swahili, which 80 million or so people speak in sub-Saharan Africa. In Swahili, Hulu means, among other things, both “cease” and “desist.” See here as well.
Given the litigious nature of online video, that is some serious irony. And you can bet that Hulu, and its parent companies NBC and News Corp., are going to be sending out one heck of a lot of cease and desist letters as soon as this thing launches.
Perhaps they should have just stuck with Clown Co. after all. And someone should ask for a refund from the very expensive consultants that this billion dollar startup undoubtedly used to help them come up with a name.
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hulu is actually a pretty decent name, it could’ve been a lot worse.
Irony is when it rains on your wedding day. Irony is like a free ride when you already paid. Irony is like 10,000 spoons when you’re looking for a knife.
I just wonder how many working sessions and consultants it took over those five months to come up with it.
and why none of them tried translating it into other languages.
Very funny Michael. but what’s also funny is that you figured it out within a few hours after they announced it but two gigantic corporations failed to see it in 6 months…
Maybe they are sending coded messages to you Mike!
Dude - I still think with the coverage you gave “Clown Co.” - they should have just gone with it. I think Clown Co. is the best name, but hey - who are we to say?
I’m sure those guys that sat around the table all those months, going “Hu… Do.. HuYou? No.. how about HUeyLEWis? no… how about HuLu!” — well they needed a job…
I think the name is stupid.
Clown Co. rocked. hmmmm…. maybe you should start a competing video service and call it that? It already has that traction thing going.
Rex
Good catch on the Swahili, Michael. That’s hilarious.
–Shawn…
(…whose CA license plate is OH IRONY — really).
lmao!
Wondering what tool you used to translate that HULU name into all of these languages (and other not-so-funny-result ones).
link in second paragraph Stef.
@Michael - A great scoop!!! A stupid name…I would have stuck to Clown Co. (a more appropriate name for a bunch of clowns)
by the way, this story is just getting started. Not the name thing, the series of missteps this JV has taken from the beginning.
they could have bought a better name;
- or came up with a more original longer name.
- a ”7” character name (youtube) makes more sense cause it logical and fits into the english language - association with names and actions
Hulu? are you freaking serious? what the hell does that mean?
What’s interesting Mike is that the research I did on the Hawaiian name showed “feather/plumage,” also means “choice and precious”.
http://www.centernetworks.com/.....-name-hulu
And I stand by the closeness to “hula hoop” which is probably not a good thing either.
But it is fun.
Hey guys news flash.
If all the major shows are available for free and in high quality (not YouTube crap), I’ll soon forget the name and what it means in freaking Swahili.
I mean, I’m no fan of this entire Clown Co. debacle, but the sheer amount of mocking on all the web 2.0 blogs is unwarranted. They’ll have to try really, really hard to screw this up.
veritas - I believe they ARE trying really, really hard to screw it up.
I will sell them want.tv for $1M
Michael,
“Cease and desist”, that is a funny find. However, although I know you love to pick on this joint venture, why not talk about the impending major effects that Hulu.com will have on the online video industry. Let’s take a quick look:
24.
Family Guy.
Conan.
The Office.
Heroes.
The Simpsons.
So they’re probably going to have a billion visitors when they launch. What does this mean for the little guys?
And I don’t know how to pronounce hulu, but I like it because it’s short and simple.
-Breck
Michael… the definition you listed says, in Swahili, it also means “permit” and “allow.”
Seems to me that perhaps Swahili is the problem here, and not the Hulu name.
Also, really, hulu cares what they call it?
Oh yeah, they’re totally doomed. Just look at how the name “Wii” has hurt Nintendo’s sales. Err… Hmmm…
OMFG… Irony squared + infinity…. lol
i have a feeling that translation site is wrong.
how can it mean “cease/desist” and “permit/allow” in swahili?
those words are nearly opposite.
Gilltots makes a pretty good point. Can any native Swahili speakers shed some light on this?
Anyone…
anyone….?
(Note to self: In twenty years when one of the 80 million native swahili speakers from war torn & impoverished African countries gets online and starts reading techcrunch ask him what “hulu” means.)
@gillots - aloha in hawaiin means both hello and goodbye.
I knew this would happen. If I had the time I would have researched the meaning myself. I think the Malay meaning is pretty good too: Butt.
thanks, wonderful.. bye
^^
Miller,
Swahili is mainly spoken in the East-African countries of Kenya and Tanzania. I didn’t know those countries were “war torn”….
What’s really sad and frustrating is how difficult it is to come up with a unique company name in today’s web.
Almost all meaningful domain names are already taken, quite many of them by unscrupulous link farms or buy and hold bandits.
… which leads us to hulu.com.
The list of bizarre startup names is endless (not going to mention any, as my goal is definitely not to offend any one
It would be great to clean this up and allow legitimate businesses to be found easily by their customers.
(any suggestions on this?)
Michael
what makes you think they didn’t take it from Swahili in the first place and already knew the meaning?
that’s an awesome name, they are sending a msg to youtube i’m sure.
The name is ironic in the context of this venture - not in any past dealings. This site may be a turning point in Big Media’s business model and It certainly won’t be funny to any of Hulu’s competitors.
Let’s move on.
^^ Eric -
Most Americans don’t have maps. And everywhere like such as.
How can these four words go together: allow, desist, cease, permit? Strange. I still think hulu is a catchy name though, regardless of what it actually means in other languages.
Best post title…
EVER!!!
gilltots: aloha
As long as they have content then it won’t matter. YouTube is a great name, good product, but if these guys have all the content then YouTube won’t matter. Personally I don’t think they’ll screw up that badly. As long as they have a decent flash player and semi decent search engine then their good to go. And lets be real, YouTube is not the most complicated tech in the world.
Any smart high school student can make a video site these days.
The hard part is managing the scale and streaming. But put a good software firm on the problem and you should be fine.
If it translates as “allow, cease, desist, permit.” it probably really is a broader word meaning permission or rights.
Pretty appropriate for online video, wouldn’t you say?
I would not assume that in 6 months they couldn’t figure out that the name may have inappropriate meanings in other languages.
I would guess that they simply didn’t care.
The commenter that used Wii as an example is right.
Hulu is short, easily pronounced, unique and therefore brandable - it’s actually a good name.
AND, the “irony” of the name with its potential to cause a stir in the blogosphere is a bonus.
My Japanese-speaking father said “hulu” has 3 meanings: 1) “to reject”; 2) “to wave goodbye”; 3) “to sprinkle salt”.
Let’s hope Clown.Co does not plan to go big in Japan.
To compare “Hulu” to “Wii” is a wishful thinking, but, people are allowed to have wishful thinking.
Mike,
Why so much hate…..
It sounds like you have it out for these guys right from the start.
I hate to say this … but all the way to the bank.
[deleted. don't be a racist]
I said it before.
They should have named it : me2ube.com
As its me 2 service.
http://hulu.com/.test
Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access /39874/.test on this server.
wonder what 39874 stands for…
they should should have names it youtubes.com and dared Google to sue them.
In Chinese, hulu could mean snoring. Nice.
Surprisingly, it does not mean anything in Hindi.
in chinese,hulu means snoring.
Fred Laruelle, I don’t think anywhere near all the names are gone, and I don’t think anyone’s particular use is any more/less moral than anyone else’s. Those names have value, and domain farmers are almost always going to be willing to sell for the right price. But having essentially millions of assets out there for sale for $10/year, it’s no surprise people hold them to sell.
Is anyone going to be able to acquire a one-word dictionary term domain for their non-profit personal website? No, I don’t think they are. But that’s exactly the mechanism by which resources generally move toward their best use in an economy. For situations where it’s not worth spending hundreds for a domain, get creative.
I bought MeFTW.com about 2 months ago, it was unused. It’s a good quality domain (in my opinion) for something for my own personal use. If I am looking to use something for business, it’s well worth paying for a good name, or else maybe my business isn’t as great an idea as I thought.
Who really cares what it translates to as long as it isn’t something very negative? It obviously wasn’t designed to be watched in these other places anyway. I’m sure there are many company names with worse translations if you want to dive into it.