Hulu's reported imminent emergence from beta seems like a good/bad news thing. Like many, I have enjoyed Hulu much more than I anticipated when it was first announced. I have used it to get up to speed with Firefly and Friday Night Lights -- as such, Hulu has partially displaced my addiction to Netflix streaming. The impressive interface, especially easy pop-outs of the player window, really helps. Performance is another matter. At home, all is good. But bring the connection quality down a notch or two -- like in hotels, when I really want my Hulu fix -- and the jitters set in harshly. I'm not technical enough to peer under the hood, but it looks to me like Hulu doesn't buffer in pause mode, so you can't buffer into a video like on YouTube.

What will happen when the masses come flooding in? Oh wait -- maybe there isn't any massive demand for Hulu's rail-thin catalog.