Hulu adding social network

Online video site Hulu will add several social network-like features on Thursday meant to keep users coming back and thereby bring in more advertisers, according to the Wall Street Journal. To be called Hulu Friends, the addition is said to let users create personal online profiles and share videos with each other, while a Scorecard feature will let them track their activity. Unlike YouTube, though, users still can't their own videos and are limited to the official movies and TV shows published to the Fox- and NBC-run site.

Networks provide content to Hulu in exchange for a percentage of Hulu's advertising revenue. As users invite new visitors, Hulu hopes to cash in with more video views and hits and help advertisers target their content as it could now track the most viewed videos and the demographic information of each viewer.

Competing sites, including Joost and TV.com, have introduced similar functions but have faired relatively poorly due to significantly reduced content; Joost also initially launched with a stand-alone app that limited the number of potential viewers.

By Electronista Staff