The Social

Video hub Hulu now lets its members amass friends lists much like a standard social-networking service, the site said Thursday.

You can now invite friends from your e-mail address books or Facebook and MySpace accounts, and then see a feed of what your friends have been watching, commenting on, or subscribing to.

In the event that you find this creepy or don't want your boss to catch on to the fact that you watch reruns of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia all day long you can disable these activity-feed features.

The announcement comes in conjunction with the one-year anniversary of Hulu's public debut. To mark the occasion, the NBC Universal-News Corp. joint venture will introduce over the next week a "bevy of new shows, more seasons of user favorites, and classic cartoons and movies."

Also new: a sort of trends page with rankings of the most e-mailed, searched, and embedded videos, as well as editors favorites. Not surprisingly, Saturday Night Live is a huge hit, and the most-searched name on the site is "Palin."

On the less pleasant side of things, Hulu's one-year anniversary comes at a time when the site is dealing very publicly with the invariable old media-new media gulf: pressure from content owners caused the site to ax its support for buzzworthy video software maker Boxee earlier this month.

Media-center start-up Boxee, which aggregates Web video for television set-top boxes, has launched a new version that restores access to video hub Hulu. The NBC Universal-News Corp. joint venture had pulled its content from Boxee after content partners took issue with it.

But it's not really the same: Boxee has brought back Hulu by extending its support for RSS feeds, and is pulling the video content in that way.

"Like IE, Firefox, or Google Reader, the RSS reader supports Google Video, Yahoo, YouTube and feeds from many other websites," a post on the Boxee blog by CEO Avner Ronen read. "While it's not as attractive or robust as our previous Hulu application, it will additionally support Hulu's public RSS feeds."

Industry talks continue, the post continued. "While we don't come from an entertainment or cable background, we are learning quickly. It is a complex business. Our meetings with Hulu and their content providers reinforced that point," Ronen wrote. "They are trying to adjust to a new reality, but they need time."

Note: Spoiler alert, if you haven't seen Hulu's Super Bowl ad.

Google's "don't be evil" motto has been the target of the occasional critic. Hulu, however, has declared in its hyped-up Super Bowl TV ad that it is evil--and it's not making any apologies.

The Web video hub, a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., promised to "reveal its secret" in the Super Bowl ad created by agency Crispin Porter & Borgusky, which was running on NBC on Sunday evening. It was an important debut for Hulu, as many television audiences had likely never heard of it. Indeed, when I tried to watch the ad on the Web for the first time, Hulu's servers were overloaded, indicating server demand was high.

But eager nerds who were hoping for a big announcement of new content or a hardware tie-in were probably disappointed: the "secret" was decidedly tongue-in-cheek. We hope.

The ad, called "Alec in Huluwood," stars veteran actor Alec Baldwin, currently in the cast of the NBC show 30 Rock, narrating a 60-second spot that takes place in what appears to be an underground laboratory facility beneath the famed Hollywood sign.

"You know they say TV will rot your brain?" Baldwin asks as he descends in an elevator. "That's absurd. TV only softens the brain like a ripe banana. To take it all the way, we've created Hulu."

The thinking, per Baldwin's monologue, is that if there's loads and loads of TV content available on the Web, you can't possibly escape it ("I mean, what're you going to do? Turn off your TV and your computer?") And Hulu, he says, was created with sordid ulterior motives: "Once your brain is reduced to a cottage cheese-like mush, we'll scoop them out with a melon baller and gobble them right on up."

A tentacle slips out of Baldwin's suit jacket. "Because we're aliens, and that's how we roll."

Guess my "Hulu is people" theory wasn't that far off.

• Click here for more Super Bowl stories.

Well, well, well. Here's something that just came into my inbox, and presumably the inboxes of the rest of the digital-media press corps: an e-mail from the media team at Hulu, the joint video venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., announcing that the company will be running an ad during Sunday's Super Bowl XLIII. Considering the game airs on NBC, a Hulu ad is not too hard to fathom.

It seems like there's always a rumor about some huge tech announcement that will come to light during the annual football-and-advertising bacchanalia, like that Beatles-iTunes thing two years ago that never surfaced. But at least we know this one actually exists, and to boot, it sounds like Hulu is really hoping to make a splash along the lines of Apple's landmark "1984" ad that aired 25 years ago.

"During Super Bowl XLIII this Sunday, look for the launch of Hulu's ad campaign," the e-mail read. "Finally, we'll reveal the secret behind Hulu."

Ooh! Secrets! I love secrets! Clearly we will learn one of three things this Sunday:

1. Hulu is the Matrix.
2. Hulu is Luke Skywalker's father.
3. Hulu is people.

Aw, heck. With a revelation like this on the way, who cares whether the Steelers or Cardinals win?

• Click here for more Super Bowl stories.

MySpace's political initiatives didn't end with the primaries: the News Corp.-owned social network has unveiled a contest in conjunction with NBC News and MSNBC.com in anticipation of the major parties' campaign conventions.

Part of the Decision '08 initiative between MySpace and NBC News, it's a competition to choose MySpace's "citizen journalist" correspondents at the major parties' national conventions later this summer.

Entrants, who must be MySpace members who are 18 years or older, must answer one of the following questions via a video submission: "Why do you vote?" "Why are you the best person for this job?" and "How will you stand out in the crowd and get the scoop no one else can?" Entries open at noon Pacific time on Thursday, and close on July 16.

Contest judges will be MSNBC personalities Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist, as well as MySpace president Tom Anderson (yes, that Tom) and Lee Brenner, director of the site's "Impact" political activism section. They'll choose five finalists, from whom two winners will be chosen by members of MySpace.

Convention reports, both text and video, from the two winning "journalists," will then be featured in MySpace and MSNBC's campaign coverage.

Yaaaay! Stephen Colbert on Hulu!

(Credit: Comedy Central)

This post was updated at 11:01 AM PT on Tuesday to clarify wording: television content from Viacom is almost exclusively handled by MTV Networks.

In an unexpected move, video site Hulu will be getting some political loudmouths just in time for the 2008 presidential election: Comedy Central's late-night personalities Jon Stewart of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report.

We had to check and make sure the press release wasn't a joke, but there are indeed full episodes from both programs available. It comes as somewhat of a surprise, considering Comedy Central parent company Viacom has not officially signed on to Hulu, which launched as a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. and does not yet have any other major networks on board.

But on the other hand, MTV Networks, the Viacom division that encompasses Comedy Central, has made some distribution deals, and both Stewart and Colbert were already available on the Web in one form or another. And Viacom had already made select content available to Hulu rival Joost, but now that the Joost hype has faded completely, experimenting with Hulu's ad-supported distribution seems logical. Making the popular Comedy Central talk shows available could be the media conglomerate's way of dipping a toe in the water.

Additionally, later in June Hulu will start to add select programs from PBS: Nova, Carrier, Scientific American Frontiers, Wired Science, and potentially others.

This bring's Hulu's count of programming content partners up to more than 70.

Social network MySpace might've chosen MTV as its media partner for the 2008 presidential primaries, but on Tuesday it'll be launching an election news hub in conjunction with the more traditional NBC News and MSNBC.com.

Called Decision '08, the new site is part of MySpace's "Impact" political channel, and showcases election news (complete with links to MySpace profiles of NBC News anchors and analysts), opinion, video from MSNBC, polls, and a discussion forum.

This is very similar to what MySpace rival Facebook is doing through a partnership with ABC News. For NBC, it's a way to reach a younger audience that likely isn't watching nightly news broadcasts.

"The 2008 election is proving to be the most youth- and technology-driven race in history, and MySpace is a significant forum for political discussion today," Lee Brenner, MySpace's executive producer of political programming, said in a statement. "We are privileged today to be partnering with such revered news organizations...and to be taking our first steps in what will be a unique and engaging collaboration for the MySpace community."

MySpace is owned by News Corp., which operates MSNBC competitor Fox News.

This post was updated at 12:46 PM PT with comment from 'Quarterlife' co-creator Marshall Herskovitz.

It's undoubtedly a setback for those hoping to see Web video make a clean transition to the living room TV: Quarterlife, the hyped-up Web series from the co-creators of Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, had a very disappointing network debut on NBC and may be on the chopping block.

The show, which premiered Tuesday night, managed to pull in only a tepid 3.1 million viewers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. While NBC hasn't formally decided to pull the plug, sources have told the entertainment news service that such an announcement is forthcoming.

Video-blogging 'Quarterlife' protagonist Dylan Krieger, played by actress Bitsie Tulloch

(Credit: NBC)

It could've been a Cinderella story. A TV show, rejected by traditional outlets, finds a new home on the Web. It gains buzz, a major network picks it up, it's a success, and everybody cashes out. Or not.

Quarterlife, a semi-edgy drama, had debuted online at Quarterlife.com and via a syndication deal with MySpace.com. On the Web, it didn't reach "Leave Britney Alone" levels of popularity, but it amassed enough viewers and positive reviews for NBC to decide to add Quarterlife to its prime-time lineup.

But the reason why Quarterlife was likely picked up so quickly--the Writers Guild of America strike that left television networks without new scripted content--no longer exists. Now that the writers are, well, writing again, NBC has a much less compelling reason to keep Quarterlife around.

In a statement Thursday, Quarterlife co-creator Marshall Herskovitz remained optimistic. "I am happy to say that the reports of Quarterlife's demise are exaggerated. We're deeply grateful for NBC's efforts to make Quarterlife a success on network television," he said. "However, I've always had concerns about whether Quarterlife was the kind of show that could pull in the big numbers necessary to succeed on a major broadcast network. It is important to remember that Quarterlife has already proved itself as a successful online series and social network with millions of enthusiastic fans."

It's niche-media, Herskovitz added. "We live in a media world today where many shows are considered successful on cable networks with audiences that are a fraction of those on the Big Four. I'm confident that Quarterlife will find the right home on television as well."

Social-news company Loomia announced Wednesday that it has launched a new application called SeenThis, which connects news sites with social-networking sites so users can learn what their people on their friends' lists have been reading. Loomia's inaugural partners in SeenThis are The Wall Street Journal, NBC Universal, and CNET Networks, parent company of CNET News.com.

Like many other "recommendation engines," Loomia's technology can suggest content items to a reader based on what he or she has already viewed. SeenThis goes a step further by using social-networking sites' APIs--the one that the current content partners are using is Facebook--to gather what people on a reader's friends' list or within his or her regional, company, or school networks have been viewing on a partner site. So, for example, a WSJ.com reader might see that eight people from his Facebook friends list have read the latest doomsday story about the housing crisis, or that members of his alumni network on Facebook have been browsing the travel section.

CNET Networks will be using SeenThis on its business news properties: BNET, TechRepublic, and ZDNet. NBC Universal, meanwhile, will focus on video so that viewers can learn which NBC.com videos their social-networking contacts have been viewing.

Perhaps because of the brouhaha that surrounded Facebook's Beacon advertising program, Loomia has stressed that SeenThis is opt-in only. A Facebook user, for example, has to install the SeenThis application before it starts tracking habits on partner sites.

The release from Loomia on Wednesday hinted that SeenThis will expand to other social networks as time goes on.