Hulu.com

Fast on the heels of the online release of Nine Inch Nails' totally amazing digital album "Ghosts I-IV," NBC Universal and Fox today announced the public release of their hulu.com television- and movie-streaming website. The site lets you watch complete episodes of televison shows, both current [e.g., 30 Rock, Family Guy, House] and classic [e.g., Adam-12, The Bob Newhart Show, Welcome Back Kotter], and full-length Universal and Fox movies [e.g., The Big Lebowski, The Jerk, The Usual Suspects]. Short clips are also available for many popular television shows and movies.

While hulu.com offers full seasons of many classic television shows [e.g., Firefly, Ironside], it only has the newest episodes for current shows [e.g., the first eight episodes from The Office season four.] 

For those who are afraid that the goons from the RIAA or MPAA will kick down your door and cart you away for watching hulu.com's bootleg television shows or movies, rest easy. The television shows and movies are not bootlegged. Hulu.com is owned by NBC Universal and Fox, and those companies placed their copyright-protected content on hulu.com in the hopes that you actually WOULD watch it.

Now for the really amazing part. Hulu.com is completely free. There is no charge to watch any of the site's streaming television shows and movies.  How is this possible? Simple: advertisements. According to Advertising Age

Hulu is running traditional 30-second ads in long-form video -- albeit with only 25% of the ads one might have to sit through while watching TV. When it comes to short-form video, Hulu allows a 10- to 15-second video overlay, which viewers could click if they want to interact further with the advertiser.  [Source: http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=125646]

In other words, if you watch a television show at hulu.com, expect to see a 30 second commercial before the show starts and then another 30 second commercial at each regularly-scheduled commercial break.  Think TV, complete with ads, but on your computer screen. If you ask me, that's a small price to pay for free content.

March is turning out to be a really cool month.