Breaking: News Corp. and NBC Universal Unveil Official Name for Online Video Venture

This just in... the un-named online video venture from News Corp. and NBC Universal now has a name: Hulu. What is it with these "Hawaiian" sounding names? First Mahalo for a search engine and now hulu for a video service? From GoHawaii: Hulu, Hawaiian for “feather/plumage,” also means “choice and precious” and, at a symbolic level, stands for an esteemed kupuna (elder).

Hulu explains the name, "Why Hulu? Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we’re building." Seems to make me think of a hula hoop. One that goes round and round but never actually goes anywhere. It is a fun sounding name.

Details are just coming in but here is the release:

Los Angeles, California — Aug. 29, 2007 — News Corp. and NBC Universal today announced that "Hulu" is the official name of their online video joint venture and that the private beta will be available in October.

Starting today, interested users can submit their email address at hulu.com to be included in an invite list for the private beta.  The Hulu beta is expected to be open to a limited number of users and continue to grow as the Hulu development team continues to scale the site and address user feedback.

Visit http://hulu.com and click on the "Find out more" link to read a message from the CEO, Jason Kilar. Ongoing details and updates about Hulu will also be made available on http://hulu.com.

Update: Om has some good additional details on the name on NewTeeVee.