Over at BNET, Catharine P. Taylor makes the interesting point that the Hulu Desktop application is designed to snare you into watching it. She argues, and I think she does a good job of it, that by “automatically streaming a program of Hulu’s choice when you log on,” you’re far more likely to stick around and watch a show. Hulu’s Web interface doesn’t have streaming.
It makes sense to me. Is there anyone who hasn’t ended up watching a show on conventional TV because he stumbled across it while randomly channel surfing? My concern with this move, as it was when Hulu first introduced the Hulu Desktop, and subsequently cut PS3 users off from Hulu, is that Hulu is on its way to abandoning its Web interface. I really, really hope that this isn’t the case.