phoenix nest

When I first heard about Hulu I was pretty damn excited. I used to always dig through youtube trying to find episodes and clips of the Colbert Report or some other show I had missed. When I needed to, I went to abc.com or nbc.com and watch the show on the actual website, but the show eventually expired and was no longer available. I also couldn’t go back and catch up on the last season. I was forced to go to TV links (RIP), or rent the show on Netflix (if I was really interested).

Needless to say I was happy when I heard that NBC and friends would be coming out with their own Youtube like website in an effort to grab all of us who often wandered aimlessly in search of TV clips. When I first heard that the site had launched, I signed up for beta, and boy was I impressed. All my favorite shows were there (this season at the very least, with the other seasons clearly being made available over time). But in particular I was impressed with all the things they did right, let me step through them here to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

• (short) Commercials / Ads

Let’s face it, there was no way that these companies could just put these shows up for free. It costs money to produce and air them, and the writers have to get paid (hopefully they WILL get a cut of the internet pie after the strike ends). Anyway Hulu has ads but they are very tolerable and quite short. In a half hour show (usually 22 minutes or so), you’ll experience a short < 6-10 second ad before watching, then 2 more ad’s during the show which are always < 20-35 seconds. That’s less time than standard commercial on normal TV, and this is on demand. Additionally, you won’t experience repeated ads by going backwards if you miss something. Oh and there is an ad at the end, but no one sticks around for that, so I didn’t count it.

• All the features you know and love.

This isn’t like that standard proprietary window/player you see on the network sites, its a flash player, with a little all the standard trappings you’d find on a video site like youtube or metacafe. Full Screen, Sharing, Rating, etc. One sour note, Sony fans will be sad to learn that I couldn’t get it to play on my PS3, but I’ve gotten used to watching shows on my laptop.

• Embedding whole TV Shows.

This was a major selling point for me. I love being able to watch embedded material on sites, video side by side with text in an article is awesome, convenient and smart. It helps raise knowledge of the shows and even more importantly, gives non-beta users access to shows they normally wouldn’t be able to watch. I’ll luckily be embedding lots of clips in future posts. As a matter of fact, enjoy this episode of family guy, the first show I watch on Hulu. It’s hilarious:

• It won’t replace Youtube.

Hulu isn’t meant to replace Youtube, it’s not the same kind of videos. Youtube is for YOU. Clips we post, our responses to event, other videos, and people getting hit in the balls with a hockey puck. Hulu delivers where Youtube failed because of copyright issues. It won’t ever replace user generated videos, but its great because its the best collection of legal TV media online. I predict that Hulu will be a household name within a year of coming out of beta, it’s just too big to ignore.

So go ahead over to Hulu.com and sign up for beta. It took me about a month to get accepted, but that was likely at the peak of sign ups, I would think that it might be a little shorter now. Anyway, it’s worth the wait, and its free, there is no reason NOT to sign up.

I recently wrote a letter to my state Senators concerning a bill coming up for vote in the Senate soon. It’s been all over digg, and I saw a cookie cutter letter on someone’s blog and decided to modify the letter to reflect my own concerns. I read over the text of the bill (it was really very short and can be found here), and modified the letter and e-mailed it two both my Senators.

Unfortunately I don’t have the complete text, since I sent the e-mail through a form on their websites. Basically I expressed concern over the vague language describing terrorism or radical violence as “threatened, planned or intended violence” against Americans. Even worse was a section explaining how the internet was used to provide terrorist message and propaganda to the American public. And making terrorist materials easily accessible to the public. I had flashes of china-like censorship of the internet.

I got the following response, likely from a member of his staff (which is expected, he’s really busy):

Dear Mr. De Sousa:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding H.R. 1955, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. I appreciate hearing from all Pennsylvanians about the issues that matter most to them.

H.R. 1955 was introduced in the House of Representatives on April 19, 2007 and was agreed to on October 23, 2007. The bill was received in the Senate and referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, of which I am not a member. Please be assured that should this bill come before the full Senate, I will have your views in mind.

Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future about this or any other matter of importance to you.

If you have access to the Internet, I encourage you to frequently visit my web site, http://casey.senate.gov. In the months ahead, I will continue to develop the site in order to allow you to stay up-to-date on my work in Washington. If you wish to e-mail me, you can do so on the web site.

Sincerely,
Bob Casey
United States Senator

Anyway, hopefully the text of the document will get modified in committee and things will be better.

A man shot two black men in Pasadena, TX after he witnessed them burglarize a neighbor’s home. Incredibly, the man felt he it was not “right” to rob someones house in plan daylight, but it was right to shoot two unarmed men in the back for stealing property.

The video explains it all.