Since Tivo, I do not accept any commercial advertising I did not ask for (can't even listen to commercial radio in the car without losing it and turning back to NPR, even during pledge drives!), so for me Hulu can Hulu all they want, if I can't skip a commercial, I will skip the content. Period.

So, the networks still have a lot to work out. I would rather pay Tivo (though I have lifetime services on both my machines so I am not paying much) to avoid commercials I did not ask to view.

Remember when the internet was supposed to tailor the advertising for the viewer? Yeah, so that is why I get ads and emails for penis enlargement (I am a woman) and golf supplies (I have never even been on a golf course in my life.) Look, broad based advertising doesn't work. Money wasted. When will they learn?

Maybe when Hulu can offer me commercials I WANT to see (there are about 2 I can think of right now)I will be interested in their service. For now, I will continue to bloop, bloop, bloop my way to freedom!

Will it work on macs?

"Other great features: Every show is embeddable on sites beyond Hulu."

I haven't tried it on a Mac, but according to the site, it should work. Here are the system requirements:

* Internet Explorer 6.0 or above, Firefox 1.5 or above, or Safari 2.0 or above

* JavaScript and Cookies must also be enabled.

* Adobe Flash Player 8.0 or above

* Microsoft Windows XP SP2, Microsoft Windows Vista, Macintosh OS X, or Linux

It means that you can post episodes of the shows on your own site as, I've done here.

Does Hulu allow you to pause the show so that the entire episode loads before you watch it, as YouTube does? Or do you have to watch it as it streams, as with the shows NBC streams on its own website?

....like it has here on Salon?

I think there's a huge difference between watching short clips (You Tube) on a computer and watching full-length shows. I just can't imagine anything like this succeeding without the ability to go mobile or watch on a television set.

The browser based approach is flawed imho. And with added commercials it becomes entirely useless. iTunes may not be perfect, but it's still the right model for this type of content.

I can't watch the embedded clips. At long last, a disadvantage to living in Canada. That and the snow.

I can't watch living here in India. Finally, a disadvantage to living in India. Now I'm thinking about going back to Canada and the snow. Does this wide screen TV thingy work there?

... and then said this:

but they're unavoidable -- Hulu's player pauses the ads when you click to another window, so you can't do e-mail or browse the Web while the ad is playing

That registers as a hassle in my book!

Look, I understand that they need people to see the ads so the site makes money. I get it. But forcing ads on me is about as appealing as having my DVD player tell me I can't do something not b/c of technical limitations but just because the DVD publisher, you know, wanted it that way.

This is what Google generally understands- in my opinion, Google prints money because they found a method of delivering advertising that a) gets noticed and b) does so without unduly pissing off the viewer. Gmail is perhaps the best example of this; I wouldn't turn off Gmail ads if I could because I have actually found a lot of useful sites via the ads on the right-hand side. These ads are easy for me to ignore if I'm in a hurry or focused on the task at hand, but are easy to scan if I am so inclined.

I'll wihthold judgment on Hulu (I did so love the A-Team as a kid). I hope that the advertising is so short, and so good (that's another tip- if you make clever enough ads, people will want to watch them) that it won't drive people bananas.

This all sounds very interesting, but if the purpose of this site is to watch TV shows, I'm not interested on watching on my computer.

What I like doing is downloading the shows (and yes, I will pay) and watching them on my Ipod on my hour train ride to work.

I think NBC is missing the mark on this, and hope they'll make them available for the mobile technology.

Is Hulu off limits to the Ipod?

IF they add the ability to display closed caption I'd be in full heaven.

Any idea how long the waiting list currently is?

except streaming from a website instead of a standalone player. I'm not sure which I think is better. The embeddable thing is nice, but honestly, I can't imagine anytime I'd want to embed a full episode or movie in to a blog or anywhere. No one would watch it.

Anyway, for anyone interested in this type of service, head to joost.com and download their beta. It's pretty good (oh and you can do other stuff while the commercials play, imagine that).

I realize that I am not the most popular person on this blog, calling as I do for harsh enforcement of the copyright laws and raining as I do on the piracy parade.

However, if people are truly serious about not killing the media goose, they should all celebrate this development. And YouTube should quake. This is an excellent next step in the reinvigoration of the old-media companies. I feel that commercials are going to have to happen no matter what, and so to complain about them is like complaining about the weather.

Let us take the next obvious step: on to the destruction of BitTorrent!

When I view these vids, I don't see ads (not that that's a bad thing, but I'm fine with the ads).

I see the little dot, which I assume is meant to indicate that there's an ad, but my videos just play right through them, no interruptions.

Have they removed commercials for embedded videos or is this some weird/awesome side effect of having adblock installed on firefox?