Hulu.com may be getting ready to go public.
Reuters reports the Web video service is preparing for an initial public offering and could file the prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission before the end of the year. Morgan Stanley is likely to lead the underwriters.
Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog
Hulu seems to be making noises that 
it could be nearing the end of its beta period on its Hulu Plus service. The company has announced another pair of set-top boxes that will begin carrying the service soon.
Tivo has signed on with the company to bring Hulu Plus to its Premiere DVRs in the coming months, and all Roku streaming media players will begin carrying it this fall.
The growing threat of Web video distribution 
is one the cable industry needs to pay closer attention to, according to the CEO of Verizon. Ivan Seidenberg, at a Goldman media conference in NY, told attendees he doesn’t expect future generations of customers to have any interest in buying cable bundles.
“Young people are pretty smart. They’re not going to pay for something they don’t need to,” he said. “Over the top is going to be a pretty big issue for cable.”
Apple is wading into the stream. The company’s 
much-anticipated overhaul of its Apple TV service eschews the download-to-own model in favor of an HD Web streaming rental biz.
Apple’s plan to make movies available day and date with DVD for a $4.99 rental is in keeping with the film biz’s piracy-combatting push to make titles available for easy legal downloads through a host of platforms, from Apple’s iTunes to Netflix (which Apple TV will support); Amazon, Hulu and Blockbuster; the major videogame consoles from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo; and, soon, YouTube.
The cost of playing “Modern Warfare 2” with friends on the 
Xbox 360 is about to go up. Microsoft announced Monday it would raise annual subscription rates for its Xbox Live service from $50 to $60 starting Nov. 1.
That’s the first price increase in Xbox Live’s eight-year history — and it’s a move that will affect more than just gamers in households. Microsoft has steadily added adding non-gaming functionality to the service in a bid to lure consumers who are looking for other entertainment options, including streaming of films and music.
Hulu Plus is still in its limited preview mode, but if you 
can’t get an invite – and you just can’t wait watch Hulu on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, there’s now a way to do so.
Hulu is inviting people to download the free Hulu Plus app to help them test the experience – meaning a limited number of show episodes and clips are viewable by anyone with an iDevice.
While 3D TV is getting the lion’s share of the media spotlight these days, consumers are showing considerably more interest in Internet-enabled sets, according to new research from iSuppli.
Global shipments of IETVs (TVs with built-in Internet capability) will hit 27.7 million this year, says analyst Riddhi Patel. That’s nearly seven times the number of 3D sets expected to ship – and a 125 percent increase over the 2009 numbers.
Hulu is finally expanding beyond your PC’s monitor, but
if you want to take advantage of the service, it’s going to cost you. For the past week, we’ve been running Hulu Plus, the site’s subscription service, through its paces as it ramps up for a broad launch. And we’ve come to a few preliminary conclusions.
We say preliminary since this is a service that’s still in beta – and there’s still time to improve some of the bugs. On the whole, though, Hulu Plus is a content-packed service that gets a lot of things right. And its portability, especially via the iPad, is a welcome and long overdue feature that might be enough to get some people to pony up the $10 monthly charge. It’s far from perfect, though, and there are a few stumbling blocks that could keep others sitting on the fence even after Hulu opens the service up to everyone.
For years, Hulu has been the great white whale for content streaming devices. Virtually everyone has tried to lure the service beyond its PC roots, with no success.
That changes today, with the introduction of Hulu Plus, a new premium subscription service from the site. For $9.99 per month, subscribers will be able to access a full season’s worth of their favorite TV shows, rather than a select handful. As part of the rollout, Hulu has also announced it will begin streaming Hulu Plus on a variety of Internet-enabled TVs, Blu-Ray devices and the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 over the coming months.
Chris Morris: Journalist 