Hulu has been taking a hit in the ratings in recent months as metrics services re-think how they measure its streams. With the video advertising filtered out of the total videos counted for the site, it has plummeted in June and July's comScore rankings from No. 2 to No. 10 in terms of video content views. Still, the brand has an audience of 28.46 million people who stayed on average more than two and a half hours each for the month. The site's cumulative hang time per user per month is second only to YouTube's and everyone else trails far …

We're not entirely sure what the 800-pound social network has in mind in its new live streaming video offering, but they plugged whatever it is in last week. Facebook Live is a video streaming channel at the site that is supposed to take us inside the company. The socially-enhanced feed allows for live Q&A with the audience through an "Ask a Question" feature that directs the query to the moderator. The video is surrounded by the real-time Live Feed of everyone who is watching as well as a chat feature.

Steve Jobs may be a "super-genius" of marketing and design but I don't think he saw at least one media behemoth coming -- video gaming. Jobs and Apple seemed almost surprised at the ways in which the iPhone so quickly became the new locus of mobile gaming. While they were screwing around with Apple TV, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony had already recognized that gaming was the best way to get a set top box into the living room. We are still waiting for Apple to release for iOS4 the centralized gaming center that will facilitate multiplayer gaming on the iPhone/iPod …

Branded entertainment clearly is getting full of itself when some variations on the theme start showing up at film festivals. As Slate's Sasha Watson points out in a comprehensive essay and slide show on the phenomenon, the medium-length fashion-branded films for Dior, Donna Karan and Chanel are being screen at exclusive venues this season in increasing numbers.

I can't imagine how much Qualcomm invested in the massive build out of its FLO TV mobile TV broadcast system. Originally aimed at the phone handset market several years ago, it promised to offload mobile video from the carriers' bandwidth-challenged data channels and deliver to phones broadcast-quality reception and resolution for live shows. In order to pull this off, FLO TV engaged in a costly acquisition of spectrum and placing radio devices on cell towers in major urban areas. Handsets from AT&T and Verizon hit the market essentially armed with TV tuners that could pull in pristine signals that allowed …

MTV's skirmish with Universal Music Group over the way in which the TV network can run UMG music videos across their sites is a portent of things to come. Two or three years ago the online reflex defaulter was to hyper-distribution. Embed and proliferate. Get that video out as far as the sharing tools could bring you. In the coming phase of the market everyone is going to be more reserved in their distribution strategy as media companies partner up and a lot of vested interest stat colliding.

Jason Bateman is that rare kind of unabashed actor who seems to have been in the Hollywood fabrication game all too long to take it seriously. Or at least that is the Hollywood pose that itself seems to have lent him a weird kind of celeb credibility. The cocreator of brandertainment house DumbDumb and maker of infamous Orbit video "The Prom Date," announced the other day via Twitter his company's next salvo of ickiness. "The new Orbit short from Dumbdumb is up at YouTube. I'd post the link but still dumb. Sorry. It's called The Dancer. Hope you like it." …

I am not sure what to say here except check the sky for locusts and maybe the right-leaning wingnuts are right and Obama is the Anti-Christ. The ends may well be near. Fred -- yes, that Fred Figgelhorn of YouTube fame -- is getting a movie.

The gnomes at Hulu seem to be sending out more invitations to join the $9.99 a month Plus service in recent days. I have been playing with the product across all of its available platforms for a few weeks now: iPhone, iPad, PC and PS3. It still strikes me as a bit of a tough sell despite its many wonders. Being able to access every episode of Saturday Night Live from episode No. 1 with George Carlin is one of those gasp-including thrills. The sheer tonnage is impressive. All those seasons of Buffy, even runs of nostalgic faves like Rhonda. …

There is a rumor floated by the media gossip site Gawker that Wired magazine and its editor Chris Anderson are poised to run a cover story declaring that the "Web is Dead." The murderer? Apparently mobile platforms and their apps. If the rumor is true (and I hope it is), then expect a lively debate in which defenders of the inevitable dominance of the Web start sounding like old fogies bolstering a digital media status quo. It will be fun and weird to see. Personally, I have been waiting for this migration of content off of the Desktop to occur …