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Disney's ABC Enterprises announced Thursday that it has entered into online-video joint venture Hulu, currently a partnership between NBC Universal, News Corp., and investor Providence Equity Partners.

This means that TV shows from Disney-owned channels like ABC, SoapNet, and ABC Family will be coming to Hulu. Among them are "Lost," "Grey's Anatomy," "Ugly Betty," and "Scrubs." There will also be Disney movies available on the ad-supported streaming video site, but a press release did not name any of them. Content will be available "soon," the press release explained.

Reports started to surface about a month ago that Disney was in talks to join Hulu.

Robert Iger, president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, will take a seat on Hulu's board of directors, along with Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of the Disney/ABC Television Group, and Kevin Mayer, executive vice president of corporate strategy, business development, and technology at Disney.

ABC already streams a significant amount of television content on ABC.com, and Disney-owned television and video content was some of the first to make an appearance in the iTunes Store's video download section.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is Disney's single biggest shareholder, having sold animation studio Pixar to the company in 2006.

This post was expanded at 8:15 a.m. PT.

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?

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Hulu has quickly become one of the leaders in online video. Providing professional content from major networks and movie studios, the site has welcomed millions across the U.S. who want to watch streams of their favorite shows or movies online.

I'm certainly one of them. But after catching up on Battlestar Galactica and watching the same five episodes of The Office over and over again to memorize Dwight Schrute's lines, I'm left wanting more.

That's why I've compiled this list of five television shows that I'd like to see added to Hulu.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Curb Your Enthusiasm creator and star, Larry David, co-created Seinfeld with Jerry Seinfeld. And although this show doesn't quite live up to the popularity Jerry's show did, it's easily one of the funniest shows on television and one that I would watch every day if it was available on Hulu.

Curb takes you through the trials and tribulations of being Larry David. He's a rude, abrasive person who has little respect for anyone or anything. But it doesn't matter--his total disregard for people's feelings and his penchant for arguments makes the show a winner. Adding it to Hulu makes perfect sense. It's an HBO show--a network that Hulu currently doesn't partner with (but should)--and its cult following could help the site capture an even larger audience. I don't see any downside.

Seinfeld

What can be said about Seinfeld that hasn't already been discussed by its millions of fans and countless pundits? Seinfeld is, in my opinion, the funniest sitcom ever created and its cast of characters was second to none.

A show about nothing, it took some time for Seinfeld to captivate audiences. But when it did, they were taken by off-the-wall stunts, strange characters (George Costanza was based on Larry David), and hilarious story lines. Perhaps that's why I simply don't understand why NBC, one of the main companies backing Hulu, doesn't feature one of its most popular sitcoms of all time on its own online video service. Maybe it's contractual or maybe NBC suits don't want to offer it for free if they think they can incur more revenue on DVD sales, but bringing Seinfeld to Hulu would, in my mind, make the video site a more compelling service.

The Sopranos

Another huge HBO hit, The Sopranos is one of my favorite series and probably the show I'd most like to see on Hulu.

The Sopranos follows the life of mobster, Tony Soprano, but it doesn't inundate the viewer with scenes of mob violence, though there is quite a bit of that. Instead, The Sopranos uses Tony's family and psychology as the backbone of the story and employs the Mafia angle to provide color and drama as needed. Suffice it to say that The Sopranos is more about sociology and human interaction than the Mob. But one aspect of the show that probably keeps Hulu away is the profanity and sexual content--it's everywhere. Look for age verification if it ever gets to Hulu.

Sportscenter

Putting Sportscenter on Hulu seems like the logical next step for the video streaming service. Except, of course, that Sportscenter is broadcast on ESPN, which is owned by ABC--a company that has yet to partner with Hulu. But that shouldn't stop us from wanting the premier sports news show on television to make its way to Hulu.

Sportscenter is the single source for daily sports highlights and with so many rebroadcasts each day, it's conceivable that you'll see the same show three or four times in just a few hours and never tire of it. That's the kind of viewer Hulu needs and I don't know of any other show besides Sportscenter that could provide it.

The Wonder Years

Am I alone in thinking that The Wonder Years was one of the best television shows of the past 15 years? I thought it was poignant, funny, and most importantly, real. Yet I can't find it anywhere on DVD and as far as I know, it might never be released due to contract disputes. But that shouldn't stop it from coming to Hulu.

The Wonders Years is easily one of my favorite shows of all time. Following the formative years of Kevin Arnold, the show's viewers were able to relive teenage years that were rife with uncertainty, misunderstanding, puppy love, and a strong desire for whatever the future might hold. Its writing was superb, its acting even better. The Wonder Years was, to both children and adults alike, a tale of life. I'd like nothing more than to be able to immerse myself in that world just one more time on Hulu. And I'm willing to bet its cult following is right there with me.

NBC Local Media announced today that it will launch Web sites that target "locals only" by providing news, entertainment, and information from around the community. The sites will feature content from print and online publications in the area, as well as local bloggers and TV stations to provide visitors with all the information their city has to offer.

"These sites are a departure from what we've done in the past and the next step in our mission to provide truly relevant local content to consumers on the media platform of their choice," said John Wallace, president of NBC Local Media. "Our goal was to create a new type of user experience that's less an extension of our TV stations and more of an online destination for the latest local news, information, and entertainment. These sites are about putting consumers first and giving them the content they're looking for from the best available sources."

NBC's new plan will eliminate the link between its TV stations and their respective Web sites and will target a city's specific online community to help locals stay on top of the latest news and information in their area, regardless of the source. In fact, much of the content on the sites will be gathered from outside content providers or contributed by the audience itself through videos, blogs, and text.

According to NBC Local Media's senior vice president, Brian Buchwald, the new sites will target a group of people NBC is calling "social capitalists" who are passionate about their city and want to "stay ahead of the curve and influence others in their peer groups."

The sites will roll out in four phases throughout the month. The first phase starts today in Chicago, followed by Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco on October 16. NBC will add Dallas, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. to the group on October 20, and New York and Hartford, Conn., at the end of the month. Each new site will replace the existing NBC local station's Web site and feature a new domain name. If successful, NBC may roll out the localized sites in other markets sometime in the future.

(Credit: NBCOlympics.com)

The estimated $5.75 million in video ad spending on NBC's NBCOlympics.com really isn't that impressive, market research firm eMarketer said Friday.

To put things into perspective, NBC's projected video ad spending for the year is $505 million, making the Olympics extravaganza only 1.1 percent of the total.

NBC's handling of digital Olympics coverage has been criticized. Network President Jeff Zucker has defended his decision to not air the opening ceremony live or to stream some of the more big-ticket events on the Web, choosing to restrict them instead to tape-delayed television.

Plus, as eMarketer pointed out, a partnership with Microsoft meant that prospective Olympics viewers were required to download its Silverlight software before watching any video of the Games, and required downloads typically mean fewer viewers.

"One might just award NBC's online presentation of the summer Olympics a bronze medal then," eMarketer analyst David Hallerman said in a release Friday. "As a signifier for future online events, the games set a high bar for the competition--establishing that major sports events, tournaments and professional leagues ought to offer an abundance of video content online, not just snippets."

Click here for more stories on tech and the Beijing Olympics.

The 2008 Summer Olympics is the most online ever, which is no surprise. More of the world has broadband access than four years ago. But in the United States, at least, the old advertising-supported television model for distributing sports coverage is hanging on tight.

That isn't to say the Web is losing. On NBCOlympics.com, you can quickly jump to delayed coverage of the major events, as well as live coverage of less popular sports or qualifying rounds. What you cannot do is duplicate the live-television experience online for major events like swimming.

This is because NBC affiliate stations make advertising revenues when people tune in to those events on TV. NBC cannot just run all its Olympics video online in real time and compete with its own affiliates. We may not like it, but from a business perspective, this appears to make sense.

As good as streaming video is on the Web, TV programming still provides a better viewing experience.

Or does it? Could NBC offer a Web experience that's competitive with the television offering and end up still ahead of the game? I believe that it could.

In nearly every U.S. household, the best place to watch a sporting event is on the big TV in the family room. You have a better screen, more comfortable chairs, and a video feed that's fluid and detailed. So why isn't NBC showing the videos live on the Web and shunting people over to their couches for the viewing experience we all want, anyway?

Already, NBCOlympics.com asks for your location and cable provider before it will show you videos (this leaves over-the-air viewers out in the cold, but it's easy enough to bypass by giving the site the name of a local cable company you don't subscribe to).

NBC and its local stations--each of which has its own Web site--could, in theory, create a combined TV-Web schedule or experience for its viewers. The right combination of live big-screen events and Web-based packages for background and catch-up could be more compelling than either experience by itself.

The problem is not the technology. It's the business structure: the hold that the affiliate-based advertising model has on network television. I'm not saying that if we didn't have that model, NBC would nail the online-TV Olympics experience, but it would sure give the network a fighting chance.

Click here for more stories on tech and the Beijing Olympics.