Facebook, Hulu to strengthen ties, report says
Announcement at Facebook's upcoming F8 conference could involve "the potential for users to see what their friends are watching on Hulu and share video content between their personal networks," the New York Post reports.
- Ed was a member of the CNET crew that won a National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors for general excellence online. He's also edited pieces that've nabbed prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists and others.
Facebook is set to announce stronger ties to Hulu next week at its F8 developer conference, according to a report in the New York Post.
Citing anonymous sources, the Post offered little detail, saying only that the social-networking giant would announce deeper integration between the two companies--integration, the Post said, that could lead to "the potential for users to see what their friends are watching on Hulu and share video content between their personal networks."
The Post also reported that other video providers could be involved, and mentioned that Netflix is "also very close" to Facebook.
Earlier this year, Hulu--which is up for sale--launched Facebook Connect. The service let Hulu users share specific moments from a program, and their comments about those moments, with Facebook friends. The launch, however, was plagued by a security problem.
In March, Warner Bros. began testing a program that lets people rent or buy movies through its Facebook fan pages, and in August Universal announced its own experiment with renting movies on the social network.
Facebook is rumored to be launching a music service at F8, though that's anything but certain. Some have reported, however, that such a service would rely on partners such as Spotify and Pandora to provide the content, despite a desire on the part of the major record labels for Facebook to build its own music store and sell songs directly to its users.