The story goes:
I was looking up swing music because I heard this peppy little number from the Hype Machine today (http://poorsadmanharris.tumblr.com/post/1042697089/this-is-the-two-man-gentle...>

The first video link from Google?
The music video for Coldplay - Strawberry Swing.

Thank goodness for the inefficiencies of the web. This is BY FAR my favorite stop motion video of all time. Please show me comparable.

I have always been a huge fan of him as a comedian and a character (since Tracy Jordan basically = Tracy Morgan), but after watching this video I can truly say I'm a fan of him as a person. Hilarious and genuinely candid are a good combination. I'm definitely going to read his memoirs now.

This video is too good.....

This is sort of a public service announcement for those that get their How I Met Your Mother fix online.  For a while now HIMYM has been pulled from Hulu and placed instead on CBS's competitor premium-video site TV.com.  For your convenience (and not as a ploy to get pageviews) I've embedded the latest episode.

I bring this up because there's been a lot of chatter of Hulu moving to a paid model (they claim freemium).  If Hulu starts charging they better be prepared to up the quality of the videos they offer.  Hulu used to occupy the sole slot in the free-premium video category (I say premium meaning professionally generated content as opposed to the loads of baby/kitty/puppy Youtube videos.)  And they did an amazing job in putting out a quality product without any competition.  I watched Hulu more than I watched regular TV.  When I found out HIMYM moved to TV.com I was sad because in my opinion Hulu has one of the most pleasant interfaces on the web.  But that didn't stop me one bit from using TV.com to watch HIMYM.  The point here is that even though Hulu is one of my favorite sites, I have absolutely no loyalty to it.  Content is King.  So if Hulu wants users to pay, then they better offer some quality stuff.

Once Hulu starts charging users they're going to find themselves in direct competition from NetFlix.  Right now NetFlix is awesome.  For $8.99/month you get unlimited streaming from their streaming collection and one dollar more ($9.99) you get one rental at a time.  Plus, they're supposedly about to start rolling out 1080p streaming pretty soon (as if my bandwidth could handle it).  What kind of extra content can Hulu offer that can compete with NetFlix?  Most likely, if you're a paid subscriber they'll give you a bigger back catalog of TV shows, maybe some premium cable, and better movies?  The biggest pull in my mind would be the premium cable, but that would put a bullet right through Comcast's own foot.

I'm pretty anxious to see what Hulu has up its sleeve because I think it's one of the best sites on the web right now.  I hope someone figures out a way to make premium online video advertising approach the value of tv advertising.  Maybe Facebook will help with its extra targeting.  I think one of the big advantages of the internet as a medium over tv is that the user can interact with the content.  And I don't see that being exploited in video ads.  I'm imagining a commercial that doesn't progress until the user interacts somehow, maybe makes a decision.  Wouldn't it be so much more valuable because the advertiser is ensured of the user's attention?  Even though Hulu's "commercial breaks" are significantly shorter I still take that time to run to the bathroom or get some ice cream.  Plus I see countless ads on tv now that end with "facebook.com/company name".  Couldn't a Hulu ad let you become a facebook fan right then and there?  That would be heaps more valuable.  

BTW, Don't forget to watch the HIMYM episode.