Hulu Withdraws From Boxee, TV.com

Hulu wins on several points, as far as I'm concerned. Even as the company makes the hugely unpopular move of withdrawing its content from Boxee and CBS Interactive's TV.com, Hulu manages to handle the snafu with grace and an unusually adroit understanding of its customers' feelings.

Despite the 100,000 Hulu streams Boxee generated just last week, Hulu's content providers demanded that Hulu "turn off access" to Hulu content via Boxee, and Hulu complied, knowing that it can't exist without the good will of its content providers.

Both Hulu and Boxee blogs expressed sympathy and disappointment. Hulu CEO Jason Kilar's blog post put it well:

The maddening part of writing this blog entry is that we realize that there is no immediate win here for users. Please know that we take very seriously our role of representing users such that we are able to provide more and more content in more and more ways over time. We embrace this activity in ways that respect content owners' -- and even the entire industry's -- challenges to create great content that users love. Yes, it's a complex matter. A tough mission, and a never-ending one, but one we are passionately committed to.

For those Boxee users reading this post, we understand and appreciate that you're likely to tell us that we're nuts. Please know that we do share the same interests and won't stop innovating in support of the bigger mission.

It's a shitty day for Boxee users, to be sure. It may be even worse for CBS Interactive's TV.com, where the withdrawal of Hulu content may be less gregarious. We'll be keeping an eye out for content deals at TV.com once Hulu's exclusivity agreements with NBC and Fox expire - will the site continue to emerge as a Hulu competitor, or sink back into the fluffed-up TV Guideness of its origins?