Warner Bros. launches a competitor to Hulu

Since it launched, Hulu has gone from a cult love to a full-blown success in less than a year. While a few companies have launched their own successful streaming video sites, most notably Cartoon Network, Hulu is now the 10,000 lb. gorilla of the industry. But this near-Monopoly could only last so long before some of the other corporate monoliths that run the industry jumped into the fray. Meet TheWB.com, Warner's answer to the problem of streaming video distribution.

The primary feature the site offers that its competitor doesn't is fully searchable episodes, which is to say that every single episode uploaded is transcribed and indexed. It also gives users the ability to mash up clips from shows together. The point of this function is hard to say, but at the very least it will allow all sorts of amateur television Girl Talks to populate YouTube with their creations. This feature uses an embedded version of Adobe Premiere Express, making it the most feature-rich site of the kind.

Still, it's the shows that makes the site, and Hulu clearly has Warner Bros. beat there, especially given its film service. Although it features a few shows with decided cult followings, such as Veronica Mars and Joss Whedon's Firefly and Buffy, right now, TheWB.com it's nowhere near the size of its competitor. Whether or not the site ends up a success will depend on whether Warners puts the full might of its catalogue behind it.

Thanks to TechCrunch for the technical info.

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