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Having just moved into a new place, I have no television yet. Normally I’d turn to iTunes to catch my favorites, but the problem is that many of those shows are on NBC — the same NBC that famously cut ties with iTunes six months ago. Instead, I visit the NBC and Fox’s free video streaming site Hulu, which is exactly what NBC wants. So why does the company keep teasing us with the possibility of a return to Apple?

For example, NBC is now offering iPhone users the ability to stream select shows for free to their devices, Silicon Alley Insider has uncovered. When it actually works, the quality is awful, but still, why the olive branch to Apple supporters?

Another example: Yesterday, it was revealed that NBC was offering several of its shows on the UK version of iTunes. If you’re attempting to take a stance against iTunes, does it really make sense to partner up with the service again, even if it is in another country?

Back in January, when the writer’s strike was still going on, NBC chief executive Jeff Zucker told the Financial Times that NBC wants to be back in business with Apple. Everyone assumed that comment meant it was a forgone conclusion that the two would get back together, yet all we get are teases.

To add insult to injury, NBC also announced yesterday that it was teaming up with Microsoft to bring its content to the Zune portable media player. The per-episode price? $1.99, the same as iTunes. (Though, unlike Apple, Microsoft is reportedly open to shifting the price based on varying content.)

I fully expect to see NBC content back on iTunes at some point this year, but I have to wonder why the two are dancing around it. You can have NBC content on iTunes, but not in the United States. You can have NBC content on your iPhone, but not on iTunes. NBC doesn’t like Apple’s pricing structure, but then sets the same exact price with Microsoft for the Zune store.

Perhaps NBC is waiting to see how successful the Apple TV device will be with Apple’s new movie studio deals in place. Or perhaps Zucker just wants to make Apple chief executive Steve Jobs squirm a little more as the Hulu’s positive reviews keep coming in.

[photo: NBC]

Pretty much every James Bond film with Pierce Brosnan seemed to be a cross between a movie and a BMW/Omega/fill-in-the-blank brand advertisement. Even though the last film, Casino Royale, was more tastefully done, there were still those scenes where a product like Sony’s Blu-ray was prominently displayed in a shot.

Product placement has long been a part of film and television productions — and now it’s coming to the web. NBC Universal is creating web-only video programming that will prominently feature sponsor’s products, according to CNET.

While video on the web is popular, companies have been struggling with ways to monetize it. For example, Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.6 billion, but last year made as little as $20 million in revenue from it. YouTube recently launched a campaign with the new film Get Smart to place ads for the movie on YouTube pages where humorous clips reside (our coverage).

That plan along with this product placement idea shows companies are at least thinking beyond the traditional 30-second ads found on television, but will consumers be turned away from advertisements in these shows?

Working with the Omnicom Group, one of the largest advertising and marketing companies, NBC will begin to roll out these new shows on its digital properties such as Hulu (our coverage) in the coming months. The first such show will be a sci-fi show called Gemini Division.

Acura, Intel, Microsoft, and UPS are already on board as sponsors. Expect to see actress Rosario Dawson (the star of the show) driving her Acura to a UPS store to ship her new Intel Core 2 Duo Windows-based PC.

[photo: MGM]

Here’s the latest action:

Advanced Micro Devices is in a world of hurt — The Sunnyvale, Calif. chip company lost $358 million on revenues of $1.5 billion in the quarter. It cited a tough outlook for the computer market, but it is clearly hurting from Intel’s newfound competitiveness. AMD’s core business is microprocessors and graphics chips for personal computers. It has other businesses related to getting those chips into other devices, from consumer electronics to mobile phones. CEO Hector Ruiz said the company is looking at its “non-core businesses” to evaluate them as part of a new cost-cutting program. That’s in addition to its previously announced restructuring in which it will cut 10 percent of its staff. Hence, it may sell off some of its non-core businesses.

Sequoia wants to be Blackstone, Carlyle going through shift — Sequoia Capital, Silicon Valley’s top dog venture capital firm, is trying to broaden its franchise, looking to do asset management and advisory work, according to Dan Primack, who says it is looking to become the venture community’s Blackstone Group. Among other things, PE Wire says Sequoia is raising a $750M hedge fund and has hired Eric Upin, former chief investment officer for the Stanford University endowment, and Michael Beckwith, former principal with Maverick Capital. We’ll look into this (let us know if you know more). Meanwhile, Primack also mentions that Bob Grady, who has led venture capital activities for The Carlyle Group, an investment firm with close ties to the Bush Administration, is moving into a lesser role. It’s part of a larger transition happening at the firm. The firm has lost two partners, and it replaced them with Nick Sturiale (formerly of Sevin Rosen Funds) and Greg Rossman (formerly of Pequot Capital). According to Primack, it also has hired Jeb Miller as a principal. Miller was previously ousted from ComVentures when that firm merged with Velocity Interactive Group.

Technorati and b5media to merge? — Seems like an odd idea to merge a company like Technorati, which searches and ranks blogs all across the web, with b5media’s network of 340 topic-oriented blogs. Wouldn’t the result be b5-biased Technorati rankings? Anyway, the merger is off because of personality differences and accounting issues, apparently.

The future of social networking: Watch this space — Social networking executives, investors and pundits sounded optimistic at a panel held on Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus yesterday afternoon. There are still issues with making networks profitable, but that will come with time, panelists said. The discussion was part of ReMix, a follow-up to Microsoft’s big Mix conference earlier this year. The award for best quote goes to Dalton Caldwell of imeem (pictured), who said about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, “I think Zuckerberg is calling the shots for our industry, and when they launched a platform, our heads exploded.”

Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive continue to trade barbs as EA extends takeover offer — More here. Our previous coverage here.

Quality-video site Hulu coming to mobile? — It’s been talked about before, and chief executive Jason Kilar implied as much again during a recent talk. Of course, there are already mobile competitors. YouTube has its own mobile site, while startup MyWaves has a deal with media conglomerate Viacom to be the sole provider of mobile Viacom videos.

“‘Crazy guy’” thinks CNN’s web site is about to be attacked by Chinese computers — more here.

Much of the buzz for online video has gone to Hulu as of late following its public launch (our coverage). However, a new tidbit that was published in April’s Portfolio magazine suggests it may be too soon to completely write-off the online video site that everyone was buzzing about this time last year, Joost.

You see, buried in the magazine’s profile of the company and its chief executive Mike Volpi are the following two sentences (uncovered by CNET):

This year, viewers will be able to watch Joost videos in a browser window. Go to Joost’s website, click on shows like Seth Green’s edgy Robot Chicken or an old Rocky and Bullwinkle episode and you can watch them as easily as you’d watch a video on YouTube.

Joost, it seems, is listening and willing to change its model to adapt. Many (including us) have noted that while Joost is doing quite a few interesting and innovative things in the online video realm, the fact that it requires a seperate application cripples it in a world of YouTube and now Hulu.

Joost is not stopping there. The company also plans a major push into live programming — beginning this week with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. CBS is already seeing huge March Madness online numbers just a few days into the tournament so it’s probably not unreasonable to think that Joost is as well.

The company plans to also use this live broadcast ability so that fans in different time zones can watch the sports they love them in real-time. Chicago Cubs fans from around the country and European soccer fans in the United States are given as two examples.

Most people know Hulu as the site where they can go to (legally) watch currently popular television shows like Family Guy, The Office, 30 Rock and movies like Ice Age.

But the Hulu library of TV shows and movies is far richer than modern-day hits, and users are loving it all. On any given week, more than 80 percent of videos in the library are viewed, the company says.

Hulu only left its private beta this past Wednesday, so I’m interested to see how growth on its “long tail” of older shows and movies plays out on the web. Hulu videos can be embedded on other sites — more than 50,000 were during the private beta — and it partners with video-sharing sites like Veoh for additional distribution.

These shows are, by this point in history, an important part of America’s cultural heritage. Sample TV titles include 80’s detective show Remington Steele, the 70’s sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show, 60’s sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show (below), and one of my personal favorits, 90’s sketch comedy show In Living Color (see this classic scene featuring “Homey the Clown”).

Older shows like Arrested Development, Doogie Howser, M.D. and Airwolf are regular favorites among Hulu users, the company says. Some of these shows, like Arrested Development, weren’t even popular enough in their prime to make it past a few seasons.

And, older movies that have caught on with the Hulu audience include 1986 sci-fi flick Planet of the Apes, 1993 semi-fictional biography Dragon - The Bruce Lee Story and perhaps one of the most brilliant movies of all time, post-film noir comedy The Big Lebowski (I can hardly believe I’m able to embed the entire feature length movie at the bottom of this article, but there it is).

Many of these shows and movies have never been seen before on the web (again, at least not legally). Old fans are rediscovering them while new fans — many of whom weren’t born when the shows first aired, are falling for them, for the first time.

This “long tail” of Hulu is most certainly part of the Hulu game plan (Note: Although the phrase itself has become a cliche, this is a pretty good case for using it). Just take a look at who’s the chief executive of Hulu: Jason Kilar, a former executive at Amazon.com, a company that showed that the long tail could be wildly profitable through serving each niche of book lovers. Kilar was most recently Amazon’s senior vice president of Worldwide Application Software, and before that, the vice president and general manager of Amazon’s North American media business — in fact, he led its entry into the video and DVD selling business.

But Hulu is all about online distribution, as Kilar makes clear, and just getting these shows spread out widely across the web will create a plethora of new opportunities for advertising and other ways of making money (more on that here).

It’s also easy to imagine broader cultural significance, like a resurgence of fan sites around these older shows on Hulu. Stay tuned.

Online video site Hulu will open its doors to the public in the United States tomorrow. The site, created as a joint venture between NBC-Universal and Fox, was initially panned by many who saw it as just another video site doomed to fail going up against behemoths YouTube and iTunes. Yet, Hulu has received some glowing reviews since it launched into limited testing last year. Can it succeed?

If simplicity were the only factor in the equation, then the answer would be yes. Hulu makes it very easy to find what you are looking for. The site is not cluttered with advertisements or unnecessary features, you simply get large screen captures and video preview windows of the shows you are looking for. The site also allows you to search for content that isn’t hosted on Hulu. For example, if you search for ‘Lost’, you will be taken to a page with results from ABC’s hit show Lost — but Hulu doesn’t have a content deal with ABC, and so clicking on these will take you to ABC’s online player.

Speaking of ABC, their online full-episode offering is a good contrast to Hulu. Whereas ABC.com’s full episode area is over-crowded and clunky, Hulu’s is sleek and easy. ABC requires you to pop open a new window to play a video, download a plug-in for encryption — Hulu does none of that, instead opting to allow you to play what you want with one or two clicks and giving options such as opening videos in new windows.

Probably the most key factor in Hulu success will be the content. This is an area that they have been making great strides in, and with the public launch will offer content from Warner Brothers, Lionsgate, the NBA and the NHL NewTeeVee’s Liz Gannes reports.

Hulu currently has partnerships with over 40 content providers. Check out the full list on Hulu’s site.

Content without the aforementioned simplicity though can still cripple a service. Look no further than Joost as an example of this. That service actually does have some good content, but it’s too hard to find. More damning is that the service requires you to launch an entirely different application to use — Hulu is all browser based and even lets you use embed codes to put clips on your own sites.

Hulu also offers some of its content in high definition quality — something which YouTube does not. iTunes has some high definition content, but none for its television downloads. Still, there is much debate over how much this matters and if “high definition” is even an accurate description of what we get on the Internet.

The service, which cost $15 million to develop, makes money off of an assortment of pre-roll (played before the video starts playing) and limited interruption commercials. These are not quite as obtrusive as you might think, but still can be an eyesore in a world of DVRs and the thus far commercial-free YouTube.

We’ve previously written here and here. Silicon Alley Insider successfully predicted the launch last week.

Below, enjoy an embed from Hulu of NBC’s The Office.

Updated
Hulu, the joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp to compete against YouTube, launched an expanded private testing mode last week. While the TV service, which launched its initial beta version earlier this fall, has won kudos for a clean interface, it faces big questions.

Hulu’s primary problem is that it doesn’t own any of the content on its site and is beholden to its content partners such as NBC and Fox.

Additionally, the same content is also freely available on the networks’ own websites NBC.com and Fox.com. When contacted, a Hulu representative refused to disclose the exact terms of their deals with content providers but claimed that in many cases content will be distributed at the same time on Hulu as it is on the networks. Often, she said, “Hulu will get the exclusive online re-distribution rights for that content”.

As has been noted, the technology and quality side of the offering, at least, is promising. Unlike YouTube, Hulu focuses squarely on professional, network-produced content and has a growing library of hit shows such as “The Office” and perennial favorites like “SNL”. Against initial expectations, Hulu is a well-built service with a clean user interface and a decent seed catalog of content. Hulu’s video player is also embeddable, thereby allowing for viral distribution across the Web. In addition to aggregating content on the destination site, Hulu plans to distribute this content via partner sites such as MySpace, AOL and MSN.

In our opinion, Hulu’s exclusive right to syndicate the content to third party sites is its only competitive advantage. This also means that Fox and NBC cannot take the same content and cut a direct deal with YouTube, in order to get viewers at that popular site. Henry Blodget at Silicon Alley Insider claims Hulu’s exclusivity deal is in place for two years.

Effectively, then, Hulu has a two year window to build out a destination site, achieve distribution through high-traffic partners and viral channels, and most importantly, monetize this content better than the vertical sites or partner sites. Hulu representatives hinted as such and announced that “innovation in the delivery, tracking, and targeting of ad solutions will bring additional value to Hulu’s content providers”. However, since actual details are yet to emerge, we remain skeptical.

If Hulu’s monetization platform fails to reach the return on investment (ROI) expected by the networks within two years, the networks will have a strong incentive to break ranks, cut out the middleman and deal directly with YouTube. On the flip side, if Hulu’s ad platform is truly disruptive and allows the networks to build mass distribution for their content, a credible destination site could emerge. This outcome seems unlikely, however, because Hulu is a late entrant into an already crowded space, doesn’t own any content and is focused on distributing to third-party sites.

It also remains to be seen whether Hulu can return enough money to justify the $100 million investment, made at a reported $1 billion valuation, obtained from Providence Equity Partners (see our previous coverage).

It is also astonishing that Hulu is still not open for public use. According to analytics firm Compete.com, YouTube’s traffic has more than doubled in the last year even as Hulu has taken many months to launch this private test version. Everyday, YouTube traffic continues to grow rapidly, racking up users and exponentially increasing distance from competitors like Hulu.

Hulu, the NBC Universal-News Corp. joint venture designed to compete with video site YouTube, has launched a testing version of its site. But it is more of an anti-YouTube than a competitor, because it focuses less on user-generated content.

It comes after months of delay. NBC withdrew its video channel from YouTube last week, and also ditched Apple’s iTunes in favor of Amazon’s music service.

Hulu will be the exclusive online provider of videos from NBC and News Corp, and it will then syndicate the material to other sites, including AOL, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo, but apparently not YouTube.

Hulu got $100 million in backing from Providence Equity Partners, and arose because of animosity from NBC and News Corp toward YouTube, in part because that site kept hosting videos containing copyrighted videos.

NBC had warmed up to YouTube last year, working with the popular video site to promote its videos, until Jeff Zucker took over NBC in February. The company then changed its tune, and filed a lawsuit against YouTube.

You can register at the site, for a trial access.

Summary:
*Eons, social network for 50-plus, cuts a third of staff
*Mercora, music sharing service, changes name
*New technology to allow searching images with different languages
*Lendingclub, the people-to-people lending service, launches Web site
*Facebook is roughly breaking even
*Microsoft announces student promotion for Microsoft Office 2007
*Advertising spending is down for second quarter in a row
*Video giant Hulu purchases Chinese company Mojiti to power its video platform?

Eons, social network for 50-plus, cuts a third of staff — This is a surprising move, for such a young company. Xconomy has details.

Mercora, music sharing service, changes name — It is now called Social.FM. The service lets you share your songs with friends, chat with friends, and access the music on your PC, or on your mobile phone. It’s not clear, though, how the company plans to differentiate itself from the vast range of other similar services.

New technology to allow searching images with different languages — The University of Washington has developed a way for people to search for images using words in their own language, and find images on Google that may have indexed with words of a different language. Search engines such as Google look for images by detecting the search term in captions and other nearby text. But since the process looks for a string of letters, the results are limited to the seeker’s mother tongue — at least, until now (more here).

Lendingclub, the people-to-people lending service, launches Web site – The LendingClub.com, which lets people borrow money from other people through an online application process, has opened to the general Web. Until now, it has been solely a Facebook application. It has closed $1 million in loans since launch. We’ve covered the company before. In assessing whether someone is eligible for a loan from others, it considers factors such as where a person grew up, went to school or what they do for a living, and credit scores. However, it joins a crowded field of other companies doing something similar, from Prosper, to Zopa, Circlelending, Wonga and Globefunder.

Facebook is roughly breaking even — It may have 38 million users, but it’s still not a cash cow. Peter Thiel, an investor, says the company is cash-flow break even.

Microsoft announces student promotion for Microsoft Office 2007 — It’s selling the software at $60, or 90 percent less than before. Microsoft must recognize that students, above all, are prone to falling for Google’s free online application offerings.

Advertising spending is down for second quarter in a row — A new report released today by TNS Media Intelligence, shows ad spending has declined 0.3 percent during the first half of the year, compared to the same period a year before. That’s worrying, given that the economy is supposed to be growing. This could have something to do with the credit crunch crisis, with consumers holding back, and advertisers deciding to pull back to. Those of us focused on the Web can take solace in the 18 percent jump seen in Web advertising (most of the decline came in print), but even Web advertising could take a hit if the credit crunch doesn’t clear up.

Video giant Hulu purchases Chinese company Mojiti to power its video platform? — Hulu, the joint venture between NBC and News Corp, is rumored by Techcrunch to have acquired Bejing-based startup Mojiti. The founder, Eric Feng, was previously at Microsoft Research Asia. Mojiti also allows users to annotate videos at specific time points, somewhat like Motionbox, Viddler and Click.TV. Pluggd is doing something related. (See our coverage here ).

Here’s the morning roundup of the latest action:

Summary:
*AirGoogle at Moffet
*Twitter API has ten times traffic as Twitter.com
*House passes bill to overhaul nation’s patent system
*Hotswap, used car site, to launch, with $1M in funding
*Hulu sued by Lulu
*Google’s desktop software gets respect; GapGemini recommends it to corporate customers

Air Google using NASA grounds at Moffett Field — First reported by Valleywag, the SF Chron follows up, confirming that the Boeing 767 owned by Google’s co-founders has used the NASA airport near Mountain View. The field is normally closed to private aircraft, suggesting NASA has awarded Larry Page and Sergey Brin partial landing rights. The Google co-founders are reportedly negotiating to lease a hangar from the space agency. Both co-founders have expressed interest in space, and at one point even discussed building a space elevator — a giant tether that could take people there.

Twitter API has ten times traffic as Twitter.com — This shows the power of letting other people, in this case developers, do the work for you.

U.S. House of Representatives passes bill to overhaul nation’s patent system – The bill limits the scope for patent infringement suits, allowing courts to change they way they assess damages in patent infringement cases. Currently, courts consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent; the bill would allow, but not require, courts to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece (see story in IT World ). The bill overcomes objections by Republicans and pharma companies who don’t want to see the patent infringement suits reduced. It’s supported by software companies, however, including Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp., which are the ones being challenged in many of these cases.

Hotswap to launch, with $1M in funding — Berkeley, Calif.’s Hotswap, an online site for used cars and which lets sellers upload videos of their cars, has raised $1 million from Kinsey Hills Group. It launches formally this week, according to Techcrunch. Listings by individuals a free, while dealers pay a fee fee per listing. There’s standard search capabilities, allowing users to search cars by year, make, price and mileage for example. Viewers get to ask questions. It has plenty of competition, however, including from eBay, Autotrader.com, cars.com and many others. It’s a huge market, and many competitors can play. Videos, when taken well, can help sell a car, but it’s hard to think that other sites won’t adapt and allow video too.

Hulu, the joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp, gets sued by Lulu — Details here.

Google desktop software wins respect — CapGemini, a consultant to large companies, will recommend Google’s desktop applications to its customers, which own a million computers globally. The rap on Google’s software is that it isn’t secure enough for corporate usage. This is the first sign it is making headway overcoming that bias. (Details here)

Here’s this morning’s roundup:

SeatSmart, yet another event ticket sales company, launches — There are way too many of these companies, but hopefully the competition will decimate the dominant Ticketmaster, which is outrageously expensive. SeatSmart, of New York City, says it has raised an angel round of funding. It searches tickets across sites Stubhub, Razorgator, eBay, Craiglist, but competes with Tickex and Viagogo. VentureBeat’s previous coverage.

News Corp. and NBC Universal finally name their YouTube-clone –The two companies have been trying to build a video site that compete with YouTube, but they’ve taken months to even agree on a name. They’ve now named it Hulu. Good. At least it has two syllables, and two u’s, just like YouTube. Bizarre, given their complaining about YouTube’s copyright violation.

Stock-option backdating casualties continue — Silicon Valley’s most powerful lawyer, Larry Sonsini, may not get off free in the rolling backdating scandal. A federal judge is “unlikely to dismiss” a shareholder-filed suit against the board of directors of Brocade Communications, including Larry Sonsini, over its alleged tolerance of backdating stock options.

Wal-Mart’s space on Facebook defaced by comments — Details here.

New method to shrink images — Two Israeli professors, Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir, have demonstrated a new method to shrink images. The method figures out which parts of an image are less significant, and then makes it possible to change the aspect ratio of an image without make it look skewed. (More details at their site.) See YouTube video below:

Zoho Apps are now integrated on a single page — Zoho, the company building out online applications to compete with Google’s applications, is now offering a single start page for its office applications, a move toward integration that makes it more like Google’s product. Zoho’s Writer, Sheet & Show applications can all be accessed from (http://start.zoho.com), with more applications to be integrated later.

Corporate venture capitalists pick up pace — The venture capital arms of large companies invested $1.3 billion into 390 deals in the first half of 2007, and made up the largest percentage of overall venture deals and dollars invested since 2001. Corporate VC groups participated in 21.4 percent of the total deals and invested 9.2 percent of the total dollars during the first two quarters of the year. The data was released by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Thomson Financial data.

Microsoft acquires Parlano, maker of group chat product, MindAlign — Microsoft will add the group chat feature of the Chicago company to it Microsoft Office product offering, which will also have presence, instant messaging, conferencing and VoIP. The company raised $7 million over two rounds, from investors including Longworth Venture Partners, Oak Investment Partners and Golden Gate. Longworth later bought out Golden Gate’s stake, according to PE Wire.

SF Bay Area has nation’s richest city, county: San Jose is the richest city in the country, and Marin is the richest county in the US, according to the latest data released by the government’s census bureau. San Jose doesn’t get much respect, despite marking the south end of Silicon Valley. The Web 2.0 developer elite have forsaken the town, preferring San Francisco instead. But chip and other networking companies in San Jose are still producing great wealth (Cisco et al.), as are older Internet companies (eBay).

San Jose’s median household income was $73,804 in 2006. The median income in Santa Clara County, home to San Jose, was $80,838, showing the relative wealth of nearby suburbs such as Palo Alto and Los Altos. The second wealthiest city was San Francisco (also a county) at $65,497. Marin County, just north of San Francisco, was the richest county, with a median household income of $81,761. This wealth shows both the increasing success of area companies and the resulting cost of living. Deborah Reed from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California told the San Francisco Chronicle that Santa Clara County’s 9 percent poverty rate would be 12.2 percent if the rate were to include the local cost of living, noting that the national poverty rate is around 12 percent.