The latest iteration of Joost, the once-hot, now decidedly not video startup from the people who brought you Skype, will work in your browser — but only if you download a plugin from Joost. And while Joost struggles to find good content, Adobe is rolling file sharing into its Flash player, beating Joost's new plugin to the punch. NBC has worked with file-sharing content delivery platforms in the past, and Hulu — a site backed with quality content — uses Flash. I'm sure the Joost developers are tech whizzes, but even our journalist math puts them on the wrong side of this equation. (Photo by Job D.)

Liz Gannes, a veteran online video reporter whom I've worked with and is no slouch when it comes to getting almost any newfangled content application to function, couldn't get NBC's relaunched video-on-demand software to work. The offering is powered by a file-sharing download process from Pando, but not much good if users can't even install the software. Isn't there a company that already has a delivery and payment system for 720p video content from the networks — one that NBC used to work with? Meanwhile, to get your 30 Rock fix online, Gannes says stick with Hulu. Just looking at the listed bugs on the download page would be enough to scare off anyone who's confused by file-sharing sites.

Hulu, the online video site created as a joint venture between NBC and News Corp., will distribute shows from content startup Revision3, which focuses on shows broadly related to technology. Now you can easily switch between WWE wrestling matches and watching Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose getting drunk without having to turn off your laptop. [Silicon Alley Insider]

Just yesterday, the single most popular episode of any of the fantastical tv shows available for on-demand viewing at Hulu was some utterly random selection from a forgotten '80s detective show called Simon and Simon. And today, it's gone. Just like that. WE DEMAND ANSWERS, NBC/UNIVERSAL (AND FOX). [Hulu, Previously]

We were at Hulu doing some important research for a post when we noticed this. And now we need someone to explain it. Apparently, the most-viewed episode of anything ever on the popular video site—more popular than all the Family Guy, 30 Rock, Office, and Simpsons episodes they offer—is some random episode of the utterly forgotten '80s detective show Simon & Simon. No other episode from that classic Gerald McRaney vehicle appears in the first five pages of results organized by popularity. Seriously, why is this the most popular thing on Hulu? Why? On a site where you can watch all of Arrested Development! [Hulu]

OMG Babylon 5—the Battlestar Galactica of the mid-90s, back when getting all obsessed with cheesy space-opera was, for me, still age-appropriate—is on Hulu. C'mon guys, Quantum Leap next! [Hulu]

Here's the highlight from Kara Swisher's a tour of the Hulu offices. Hulu CEO Kilar takes Swisher into a group of cubicles reserved for developers. Hulu, Kilar says, was developed "between here and Beijing." Then Kilar walks over to a desk where what seems to be a child sits. "I want to introduce you to a little-known secret," Kilar says. How cute, Kilar wants to introduce Swisher to his kid. "Eden, take your earpieces out," Kilar tells the boy, before pulling them out of the boy's ears himself. The kid turns around and Kilar begins to explain that ""This guy coded—" but Swisher interrupts. "Oh, hello 12 year old, hello." Kilar: "He's legal. Over 21." The kid: "Barely."

Critically acclaimed but chronically low-rated jock opera Friday Night Lights managed to sneak in a third season thanks to a unique deal between NBC Universal and DirecTV. But the network has built an interesting window into the release — the episodes will premiere on DirecTV's "The 101" channel in October, but not air in prime time until February. The episodes also won't be available on Hulu until NBC airs them next year, which makes no sense at all.

When asked whether he'd post a Web clip featuring Janet Jackson's 2004 Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction, where Justin Timberlake yanked off more of her top than the two half-time performers say they'd planned to, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar deflected I Want Media's question as "theoretical.... I don't want to go there." But the site shows R-rated movies and asks users to confirm their age before showing the racier (and gorier) stuff. Kilar himself has played up the Hulu feature that lets viewers pick particular clips to search on and embed in their blogs. Which leads us to wonder: Is Hulu's target YouTube's audience, or Mr. Skin's? (Photo by AP/Ron Wurzer)

Hulu, the video on demand website that could just change the way we watch everything, is, honestly, starting out pretty well. It has full episodes and clips from over 300 NBC and Fox titles (and some movies, too) with a much cleaner format than YouTube. While some of what's on there has already been defined as internet hipster zeitgeist programming (30 Rock, Friday Night Lights), there is also some delightfully random stuff, like episodes of St. Elsewhere, the medical drama that's responsible for Howie Mandel, and Exosquad, that weird kids cartoon where people actually died. Chairman Denton had me rummage around the site for a bit, trying to find my top ten favorites. Honestly, with as much Simpsons and 30 Rock stuff as they have, it's sort of impossible. But I've managed to compile a reasonable sampling of what this odd and varied possible murderer of television has to offer. They lie, not in any particular order, after the jump. Beware that some of them are long and embedding is not working for some reason, so they're just links. Sigh.

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar says the site will soon allow users to pick the ads they want have to watch. If Ford buys ads for an SNL episode, for example, viewers will be able to select mind-numbing ads about Mustangs or SUVs. Viewers will also have the Sophie's choice option to select to watch one long commercial, likely a movie trailer, instead of several short ones. [paidContent]

Tomorrow, Hulu will finally open its doors to the wider public. Rumor has it Time Warner and Viacom soon plan to join the site, which is backed by NBC and News Corp., through nonexclusive distribution deals. CBS digital guru Quincy Smith, however, remains pessimistic: "If the Web is just another way to watch TV, I think I'm going to slit my wrists." Below, the best friend of former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel's daughter in the kind of short form clip Hulu hopes the public will take to.

When I was a lot younger, I taped — onto VHS! — all of the original Star Trek episodes when they aired at 3 a.m. on Friday nights, so I could watch them later. If only I had waited 13 years. CBS has put all three seasons of Star Trek online for anyone to view, along with a number of other old shows to the Audience Network, including The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O and MacGyver.

NBC will stream old TV shows on NBC.com, just like already does through Hulu. And through NBC Direct. And on the box in your living room. [SAI]

Yahoo Video has soft-launched a new website, in a move which speaks to both the potential of Yahoo and the company's utter disorganization. It has all the necessaries in the age of YouTube and Hulu: clips created by amateurs and professionals, playlists, and "exclusive" content. The latter, if true, is refreshing: Thanks to syndication deals which allow the endless regurgitation of video from site to site, most of the Hollywood-born clips on the Web are numbingly similar. The site also has a tantalizing promise: Video on Flickr.

Time Warner and Viacom video content will soon run on Hulu, the Web video joint venture from NBC Universal and News Corp. The Time Warner deal is done, while Viacom's is "not totally signed," a source tells us. Both deals are said to be nonexclusive. (A Hulu spokesbot autodialed us to relay the nitpick that the paperwork hasn't been signed yet. Whatever.) The news isn't a shock: Time Warner subsidiary AOL agreed to distribute Hulu at launch and before the site even had a name, Viacom executives have praised Hulu in concept. Just yesterday, MTV exec Van Toffler said, "We've been talking to [Hulu] since the beginning, and we like it a lot." Mostly because it's not YouTube, of course.

A NewTeeVee report suggests Viacom and its subsidiaries may be moving closer to licensing content to Hulu, NBC Universal and News Corp.'s Web video joint venture. "We've been talking to them since the beginning, and we like it a lot," MTV exec Van Toffler told NewTeeVee. He described Hulu as "sleek and simple." We hear MTV is as likely to syndicate content on Hulu as it is on Amazon Unbox or anywhere else. Another MTV exec, Courtney Holt, said, "We're really bullish on syndicating our content." $1 billion says they're not thinking of YouTube. (Photo by L.x. Fringes)

Today Comcast announced its bid to port its video-on-demand business to the Internet. The plan, audaciously named Project Infinity, can most immediately be seen at Fancast.com, a site for free streaming video. But what the move mostly highlights isn't Comcast's ambitions but the strategy of its partners — CBS and Hulu, the NBC/News Corp. joint venture. CBS has said it would rather distribute its video widely across the Web than labor to lure viewers to CBS.com. Hulu, likewise, is not really a destination site like Google's YouTube; its a video-syndication arm. Nothing illustrates this better than Comcast's Fancast, where every NBC and Fox video is Hulu-branded.

Lazy, scummy, and smart. That's just the way we like them. YouTube-wannabe Veoh has jumped into Hulu's hoop by adding streaming video from all the Fox and NBC properties we know and love. Only, unlike Hulu, a joint venture between NBC and News Corp., or any of its distribution partners, Veoh hasn't actually worked out any licensing deals. Rather, it's following the smarter tactic pioneered by OpenHulu of embedding Hulu videos into its own site.