NBC and Fox are not rolling over to Google/YouTube and are launching Hulu, an advertising-supported video site with content from Fox, NBC, MGM and Sony in a bid to stop the tidal wave of people from watching stuff on Youtube. Taking another leaf from Google, a test version of the site is now live with plans to premiere a final version in a few months.

The site, developed by News Corp. and NBC Universal, offers free viewing of full-length films and TV episodes, supported by advertising. NBC Universal’s CEO Jeff Zucker, speaking Monday in New York said he didn’t see Hulu as a direct competitor to YouTube, and placed a dagger into the heart of YouTube content by saying the two sites are “really two separate things.”

“Hulu is about quality, premium video,” Zucker said. “It’s safe haven for advertisers. Advertisers want to know where they’re placing their ads. It’s a lot easier to place your ad in an episode of ‘The Office’ than it is on the cat on the skateboard.” Hulu will legally offer hundreds of episodes of current shows such as NBC’s “30 Rock” and Fox’s “The Simpsons,” as well as older shows such as “Lou Grant” and “Lost in Space.”

Its movie offerings will consist of films that have already been edited for television broadcast, which will contain short ads online in the places where they would appear on TV.

Whilst visiting the LATimes website this morning I was pretty annoyed by several skyscraper ads that appeared for the upcoming Saw Movie. I really don’t think the ads are appropriate for all viewers, and that visitor discretion should be advised. Movies, music and video games are all rated before they are released, and I wonder if ads should go through a similar rating system if they are promoting products that could be considered offensive?

Do we need a New Media Ratings Board? Personally I think so, since we cannot trust the judgement of vendors or publishers. Graphic movies such as Saw are not intended for a general audience, however anyone visiting the LA Times this morning to see the MLS soccer scores will be presented with a pretty nasty ad, and if you click on it to see the destination page, you’ll be pretty disgusted by the Saw Movie website - again, with no warning as to the content….

Until we can form a New Media Ratings Board I really think Lions Gate and the LA Times should rethink their poilicy about this kind of promotion.

If you’re a fan of the Colorado Rockies and tried to purchase tickets today you’ll be pretty mad. But here’s some good news: Rockies spokesperson Jay Alves announced World Series ticket sales have been suspended Monday. Alves says virtually all the tickets are still available, due to a computer system malfunction. He says only several hundred tickets were sold.

“Right now we’re shutting the system down …. We expect to be online at some point,” club spokesman Jay Alves said.

According to Alves, the Colorado Rockies will announce new plans to sell the tickets at some point later Monday afternoon. He says the Web site received 8.5 million hits in the first 90 minutes the system was up and running.

The software breakdown that forced the Colorado Rockies to suspend World Series ticket sales has had a rolling effect on other area organizations, including the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, which crashed shortly after 10 a.m. and remains off-line for ticket sales.

The problem was a breakdown in the ticketing software operated by Paciolan, the Irving, Calif., ticketing company that processes ticket orders for more than 200 clients across five primary markets including college athletics, performing arts, arenas, professional sports and museums. The software breakdown affected other clients throughout the area who also use Paciolan, including the DCPA, the University of Colorado football team and the National Western Stock

Paciolan officials were in emergency meetings this afternoon and could not answer whether the breakdown is affecting all or just some of their other clients.

“We first started to experience slowness right when Rockies tickets went onsale at 10 o’clock,” said Anita Edwards, DCPA web-services manager. Soon after, the system failed entirely. It was estimated the Rockies took more than 8 million attempted hits to their web site.

Edwards received an email from Paciolan CEO Dave Butler stating they are aware of the problem, but Edwards did not expect web ticketing to be operational again until late afternoon at the earliest

I was a little bored with the plain iPhone wallpaper with my new 8gig unit so I scoured the interweb and found a couple of nice background images to brighten up the iPhone. It’s pretty easy to install a new iPhone wallpaper, just save the iphone backgrounds to your PC/Mac, add to your pictures directory and they’ll copy over when you next sync. To use as your you iPhone background, just view the image and then click on the picture and select “use as background”. Does it get any easier, or cheaper than that?

Nolan Bushnell, father of Atari and therein all electronic games, is still inventing and dreaming of new ways for people to use technology for fun. Now he’s forging a different direction from today’s shoot ‘em up, kill ‘em all, tear ‘em apart electronic diversions. He sees a generation of video games that foster fun, social interaction & education. Check out the inteverview over at Electronic Design and read what he has to say about uWink and the games he’s inventing (with his daughter) for his new company, uWink.