More TV on Your Desktop

Yesterday I wrote about Hulu, a service which allows you to play high-quality streamed video of both current and classic television programs on your desktop. Hulu is in private beta right now, which means if you want to use the service, you have to sign up to be a beta-tester and then wait for them to sent you an invitation.

This procedure can take some time so, if you would like to test the offerings of Hulu while you are waiting, you can point your browser to OpenHulu. This is one of several services which are licensed to stream the Hulu content. The site is still a little rough -- they are openly asking for help to refine the interfaces -- but the content is the same as you will get on the main Hulu site.

As an aside, I am continually bemused by the variety and quality of services which are coming out on the Web. I've been using the Web since the days of the earliest visual browsers and I remember when streaming audio was choppy and difficult to listen to. Now we have remarkably clear video streaming and Hulu is already experimenting with high definition video.

Amazing stuff.

So, what Web stuff have you found to be the most surprising and cool?