Reuters reported that the deal may include Morgan Stanley as lead investor and gives Hulu an estimated value of $2 billion. The IPO could occur as late as May of 2011.
Hulu has a variety of competitors in the online space that it needs to raise capital to edge out. If reports are true, Hulu could use the extra cash to strengthen its battle against chief competitor, Netflix. Hulu is also looking to take market share from other Internet giants that provide video content such as Google, Apple and Amazon.
If an IPO is in the works, a decision will be made by November, Reuters notes, that it is contingent upon the rights to renew many of the shows it carries, the contracts of which expire in a year.
Hulu is backed by General Electric’s NBC Universal, Walt Disney Co and News Corp. The service launched in 2007 as an attempt to bring TV shows online all while providing better video quality than YouTube.
The online video market is exploding, expected to reach a value of over $16 billion by 2012, according to ABI research, thanks in large part to paid and ad-supported services.
While Hulu is now the second-largest Web video service behind Google’s YouTube in the United States it doesn’t even rank in the top 10 sites visited that provide video content. The top five are Google (largely YouTube), Facebook, Yahoo, Vevo, and Fox, according to comScore said.
As Google has announced a content deal with Time Warner for its new Google TV service and Hulu needs to work quickly to raise more capital to pay for more content. Other considerations for Hulu include Amazon.com, which is considering a subscription video service of its own and Apple’s iTunes, which doesn’t offer a TV subscription, but does allow for rentals from the iTunes store.
The OnePlus Buds Clip are a new pair of open-ear earbuds built around a simple convenience. They join Sony’s LinkBuds Clip in the growing ear-cuff category, but either OnePlus bud can go on either ear.
Sensors recognize how the earbuds are being worn and route the audio channels accordingly. There’s no label to check before putting them on, and the feature also works when only one bud is used.
We buy fitness bands and activity trackers to keep tabs on our exercise, but it is easy to forget to start tracking or switch modes when moving between different activities. For Fitbit and Pixel Watch users, that could soon become a lot less annoying, as Google is rolling out a major upgrade to automatic activity tracking that can recognize more than 100 types of exercise, up from just 10 before.
Google first showed off the improved tracking earlier this month alongside the Fitbit Edge. It is now coming to Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, and Google claims the added context behind the system makes workout detection nearly twice as accurate while cutting missed activities by more than half. Fitbit Edge will support it too.