Vuguru? Hulu? Who Knew?

When General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal Inc. and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. announced the name of their new Web-based network of films and television shows this week—Hulu—the company's C.E.O. revealed the reasoning behind the choice.

"Why Hulu?" project chief Jason Kilar said in a Wednesday web posting www.hulu.com titled "A Hulu hello." "Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself." Subjectively, he added, Hulu seemed "inherently fun."

There's no arguing with that, really. Hulu, which was chosen with the help of a consulting firm, brings to mind several of fun's time-honored standard bearers, from Hula Hoops to Yoo-Hoo soda, from Boogaloo to Husker Du.

Notably, Hulu also echoes Google Inc.'s YouTube—one of its main rivals—not to mention Vuguru, Michael Eisner's newly formed production house that makes short-form video content for the web.

Asked about Hulu, Jane Hu of Vuguru, said: "We're pleased News Corp. and NBC have the same appreciation for assonance as Vuguru does."

Showing admirable self-restraint, Hu made no mention of the debt owed to Cole Porter, which was becoming rather obvious to us (as in: Hulu that Vuguru that YouTube so well). Abbott and Costello also rang in our ears. It was, of course, too early to say whether Hulu would ever be on first.

The new Hulu site, first announced in March, will start in a private testing format in October and be open to a limited number of users, said Hulu spokesperson Christina Lee. She acknowledged that Hulu will compete with Web-based video sites such as YouTube, but said Hulu would offer more mainstream entertainment product.

"We've heard things like 'YouTube killer,' but we don't see ourselves as simply their competitor," Lee said.

Hulu will include films and TV shows produced by the NBC and Fox TV networks and the Universal and 20th Century Fox film studios. Revenue—call it Hulu moolah—will come from advertising and the sale of program downloads.

Kilar, a former Amazon.com executive who became Hulu's chief executive in June, told Bloomberg News that Hulu plans to offer programming through the Internet sites of its distribution partners—Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Comcast Corp., Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, News Corp.'s MySpace.

Oh, and Yahoo Inc. Hulu will go through Yahoo, too.

Whew!

by Amy Wallace