Hulu: Flash, and a Facebook Intrusion

Today, Adobe released its Flash Player 9, which allows streaming HD video. Yesterday, I had lunch with Jason Kilar, the CEO of Hulu -- a new online video entity backed by NBC and Fox. Jason said Hulu is the first to be up and running on Flash 9, and as of today is streaming content in HD for Flash 9 users.

Interesting that Hulu has gone the route of showing video in a browser, vs. Joost's strategy of showing it in a special player that users have to download. Hulu wins on ease of use; Joost on quality. Which is better?

On another note: After I tried out Hulu, the next time I went to my Facebook page, my status had been changed to read "Kevin is looking at Hulu." Apparently Hulu has added some code that automatically does this -- which I find appalling. I've asked them to explain and will let you know what I hear.

UPDATE: Got this from Hulu's PR: "I just checked with Hulu's CTO, and he confirmed that this doesn't have anything to do with Hulu. I'd lob a call to Facebook to confirm whether or not this is Beacon related."

Haven't been able to ask Facebook yet -- but Facebook is certainly getting nailed for doing this kind of thing with Beacon.