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Hulu had a good 2009, and to celebrate the end of it, the company’s CEO, Jason Kilar, has decided to share some stats.  Here’s a quick hint as to just how successful his organization was: to describe Hulu’s growth, the word "double" often doesn’t cut it.

In a post on the Hulu Blog, Kilar started off by relaying some data from comScore.  It seems that "[m]onthly users of Hulu . . . grew to over 43 million, a 95 percent increase over this time last year."  Also, "[m]onthly streams . . . grew to 924 million, a 307 percent increase from this time last year."

Of course, these trends weren’t without their causes and effects.  Kilar noted that Hulu’s content library has gotten bigger, offering 14,000 hours of content now versus 5,600 hours one year ago.  And while Hulu was in touch with just 166 advertisers at the end of 2008, it’s now doing business with 408 of them.

Then here are some facts about what specific videos people watched.  SNL, Family Guy, The Office, The Simpsons, and Naruto Shippuden were the most popular shows, and SNL’s "Motherlover" sketch and Family Guy’s "Stew-Roids" installment were the most popular clip and full episode.  Meanwhile, the live stream of Barack Obama’s inauguration was the most-embedded video.

Anyway, Kilar concluded, "On behalf of the Hulu team, thank you for joining us in the adventure that was 2009 and we look forward to even greater heights in 2010."

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Google’s empire hasn’t exactly crumbled, and to be honest, the average person will probably never even realize what’s happened.  But what’s happened is this: for just the second time in its history, Google’s lost a domain name dispute.

Google submitted a complaint about a site called Groovle to the National Arbitration Forum (which ICANN lets decide domain name disputes) on November 6th of this year.  The search giant argued that Groovle is "nearly identical or confusingly similar" to its own name.

Complicating matters is the fact that Groovle markets itself as "your groovy custom search homepage," while noting on every page, "Groovle.com is not owned, operated, or sponsored, or endorsed by Google."

Anyway, a bit of back and forth ensued.  Then the National Arbitration Forum sided with Groovle, and in a document released today, it explained the decision.

"Respondent argues that the disputed domain name is not a misspelling of Complainant’s mark; Respondent asserts that the disputed domain name contains the significant letters ‘r’ and ‘v’ which serve to distinguish the sound, appearance, meaning, and connotation of ‘groovle’ from Complainant’s GOOGLE mark.  Furthermore, Respondent contends that its alterations clearly transform the predominant word of the <groovle.com> domain name to ‘groove’ or ‘groovy,’ not GOOGLE. . . .  The Panel agrees . . ."

This is a blow for Google in a symbolic sense, at least – it’s participated in 65 disputes – even if the development has no measurable effect.

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> Consumer Groups Ask FTC To Block Google AdMob Deal

> IBM CEO Dismisses Idea Of All-Powerful Google

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Facebook – along with a few other social sites and the developers of games for them – may be in for a great few years.  Certain experts believe that the business of virtual goods is going to take off in a big and very profitable way.

Here’s the opening line of a new article from the BBC: "Virtual goods such as weapons or digital bottles of champagne traded in the US could be worth up to $5bn in the next five years . . ."  Which would correspond to a whole lot of nonphysical stuff, if you consider that transaction prices are often in the $1-$2 range.

Still, the BBC interviewed Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners, Playfish’s Tom Sarris, and a casual gamer on its path to that conclusion.  Plus, there are the recent deals involving Zynga and Playfish to consider ($180 million and $400 million changed hands), along with the fact that Asia’s virtual goods market is already worth around $5 billion.

Toss in Facebook’s semi-sporadic support for its payment system and the new Preferred Developer Consultant Program, and it’s not hard to imagine that a great deal of growth in the virtual goods space is indeed possible.

Sarris addressed critics by saying, "The way we look at it is it’s no different from paying money to go and see a movie or rent a DVD.  What you are paying for is the experience and that notion of entertainment."

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Using YouTube may become a much less passive experience in the near future.  Google’s received applied for a patent on a "Web-based system for [the] generation of interactive games based on digital videos," and several facts point to the search giant moving ahead with the idea.

Let’s start with an overview of the patent.  As explained in the official application (hat tip to Erik Sherman), "The present invention includes systems and methods for modifying playback of online hosted videos via interactive annotations, allowing the creation of interactive games."

The application later added, "Some examples of annotations are graphical text box annotations, which display text at certain locations and certain times of the video, and pause annotations, which halt playback of the video at a specified time within the video. Some annotations, e.g. a graphical annotation (such as a text box annotation) comprising a link to a particular portion of a target video, are associated with a time of the target video, which can be either the video with which the annotation is associated, or a separate video."

Considering that YouTube can already handle annotations and time markers, this concept would be easy enough to implement.  That’s one possible hurdle down.

Another factor is that interest in "choose your own adventure"-type uses of YouTube is high.  People have been writing about the subject on a regular basis since at least late 2008, meaning YouTube hasn’t prepared to meet a demand that doesn’t exist.

Finally, YouTube filed for the patent on February 19th, and since patent applications can get tied up for years, it’s important that this one isn’t too dusty.

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In what may be a mini ‘bell weather moment’ in advertising, Pepsi has decided to keep its usual Super Bowl advertising money in its bank account. While they are not exactly saving it they are certainly redirecting it to online opportunities. I say this is a potential ‘bell weather’ moment because it ends a streak of 23 consecutive years where Pepsi has advertised during the event that attracts some of the largest viewing audiences in the history of television.

So what is Pepsi saying with this move? It’s more like a question they are asking the NFL and the advertising world that has made such a big fuss over Super Bowl ads for years: Where’s the value? Not to worry about the NFL though because they are still getting Pepsi-bucks……just not in a big chunk for the big game. Compete tells a little more

Pepsi is already a large sponsor of the NFL, having paid millions back in 2002 to replace Coke for the title of the official soft drink of the NFL. The company also sponsors Rookie of the Week section on NFL.com.

So the big moment is more about the how Pepsi is deciding to spend its money rather than with whom. The NFL is a marketing juggernaut (I had to use that word before the close of 2009) and will remain so. Even the NFL though is going to have to adjust to the dollars that are moving online that once fueled the just as important Super Bowl activity of watching and rating the advertisements. If last year was any indication that ‘pastime’ may be on the decline as well as many companies didn’t even create specific ads for the big game but simply rehashed old ones. Kinda takes the fun out of it, doesn’t it?

So why is Pepsi seeing the online space as the way to go? Compete shows a little data below that may become the new version of the old ‘Pepsi Taste Challenge”.

Even more interesting are the differences in competitive share of visitors to Pepsi and Coke sites between control and exposed consumers. Among the control group, Pepsi captures only 16% of visitors versus a lion’s share of 84% for Coke. However, the numbers are completely reversed among the exposed group.

So what is your thought about the days of the big Super Bowl advertising buys and the excitement around the creativity of the ads? Are the days of Super Bowl ads being a huge deal going the same way as my NY Giants (meaning directly south and in the toilet)?

Your thoughts?

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