NBC and News Corp have announced a name for their YouTube competitor. Hulu doesn't seem to stand for much of anything, but it's "short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself."

Since hulu is positioned as an alternative to YouTube, I suppose they're tied with YouTube for syllables, and have a slight edge in the number of letters. As for content, right now, there's nothing. Hulu is accepting e-mail addresses from anyone interested in signing up for a private beta, which will launch in October.

Hulu will have access to Fox and NBC content, and has distribution partnerships with AOL, Comcast, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo. It's not clear whether the site will feature full length television episodes or just clips. But it doesn't appear there will be much in the way of user generated video. By aggressively promoting hulu and just as aggressively targeting videos illegally uploaded to sites like YouTube, hulu may eventually answer the age old question: is YouTube's phenomenal traffic due to user-uploaded videos of cats doing stupid things or illegal snippets of The Daily Show?