Here’s a handy helper for those following the fate of the Hulu premium online video service, whose noisy efforts to sell itself have gotten a lot of attention of late:

“In preliminary talks” = “hawking itself to one of a half dozen big moneybag tech companies who will visit with Hulu’s bankers and management to see its presentation at Morgan Stanley’s office in Century City in Los Angeles.”

Last Friday, for example, that meant a look-see for Microsoft execs, to show the software giant the story of how paying top dollar for the popular Hulu would be a great investment.

This week, sources said, Yahoo will get the expected gander at the books too, among the other companies targeted by Hulu as part of a sales process in its very early stages.

Among those companies on the short list, sources said, along with Microsoft and Yahoo are: Google, Verizon, AT&T and Amazon.

None of these should come as a surprise, since they all have a big interest in the digital distribution of content business.

Google is perhaps the most interesting and difficult of the group, due to both its massive YouTube unit and the even more massive interest by government regulators about its disturbing massiveness.

Amazon is the company that seems most suited as a Hulu buyer, since it already makes its business selling and distributing content. In addition, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar was a former exec — bringing a certain level of familiarity and presumably much less of the grumpy disgruntlement that he experienced with Hulu’s current media giant owners.

Microsoft seems like the longest shot and least enthusiastic, although it certainly could afford it.

As for Yahoo: Good lord, it needs something sexy to tell weary investors.

Not in the initial round, but other possible acquirers Hulu is targeting: Facebook, Netflix, Samsung and Liberty Media.

And definitely not among those kicking the tires: Disney, News Corp. and Comcast, the trio of partners who own Hulu, along with Providence Equity Partners.

The big question, of course, is whether media-focused Apple — a notorious buyer of almost nothing — would be interested in Hulu.

These blind dates with the best possible buyers will presumably give each insight into Hulu’s business and give Hulu information on what they are looking for.

Sources who have heard the pitch said Hulu is positioning itself as an inevitable competitor to cable, which seems an odd position to take, unless it can get regular access to the kind of top-drawer content that consumers want.

And that will be the most important issue for anyone buying Hulu: The time and terms of rights to the television and movie content on the site, which has been a critical part of its success.

Buyers I have interviewed said Hulu has to offer at least an 18-month license for its content and a pile of rights to hit shows to differentiate itself from competitors.

As Peter Kafka wrote, Hulu buyers would indeed get exclusive content, but with strings attached.

He also noted that the latest content licenses for Hulu’s owner/partners — Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox — have recently been completed, deals that will stay intact if Hulu is sold.

Unlike Netflix, which has had to pay top dollar for a small pile of premium content while deftly using a large archive of older content to attract subscribers, Hulu’s success has had a lot to do with more access to popular current shows offered by its media giant owners.

Those shows include TV hits such as “The Office” and “Glee.”

That access has become a point of contention with those owners, who have differed with Hulu management about what comes next for the mostly advertising-supported site, even though its slick product has been a clear hit with consumers.

Of course, some speculate that Hulu might not sell at all, just as it never went public as it had said it might do previously. In that case, it will be interesting to see what will become of Hulu once the music stops.

(And, if anyone would like to email me the Hulu presentation or notes on it, please do, so I can formulate a bid myself!)

But, until this deal churns slowly, leakily and loudly forward — let’s enjoy some apt Hulu content. As usual, the fun version of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” by the kids from “Glee” was not available on the site.

Thus, I selected frequent “Glee” guest star Gwyneth Paltrow belting out Joan Jett’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me” on the show, as a good alternate metaphor for the sales process:

After her stemwinder of a speech, where Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin finally broke her silence of the last week in an edgy address at the party’s convention (pictured above from Getty Images), it seems like a good time to peruse some of the many Palin-focused videos popping up on the Web.

No surprise–most are comical spoofs of the colorful politician, but there are all kinds. Then again, Palin seems a quip machine, and in her speech last night she managed to call herself a pit bull with lipstick.

First up, a brilliant one from Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show,” in which he points out with dueling video clips just how doubled-faced some Republican operatives and pundits have been defending Palin by playing the gender card:

Next, a very funny news vlogger giving one of the more informative reports on Palin I have seen so far:

There is nothing like a man in drag, but I am still amazed how this guy managed to work classic lines from “Toostie” into his Palin impression:

And ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love on Me” is the soundtrack to this great photo montage of Palin (although I am not sure why polars bears inexplicably appear at the end):

BoomTown might start only writing about this takeover battle from Hell with musical accompaniment to make things seem more pleasant.

The prospect of a price rise and some substantive talks, reported in The Wall Street Journal today and which BoomTown has been long advocating, is already a good sign.

In any case, the options:

Walking (Nancy Sinatra, “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”):

Not Walking (Left Banke, “Walk Away Renee”):

More Money (Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, “Money”):

Less Money (ABBA, “Money, Money, Money”):

Winning Yahoo and Defeating Google (Judy Garland, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”):

A chart topper in 1978, Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” has been played in thousands of baseball stadiums and karaoke bars and even performed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell at the ASEAN Forum, an annual security meeting for foreign ministers (“President Bush, he said to me: Colin, I need you to run the Department of State. We are between a rock and a hard place.”) without incident.

But its alleged popularity in file-sharing circles–particularly after the appearance last year of a YouTube video combining it with historical footage of Adolph Hitler and other Nazis–has drawn the group’s ire, as well as that of Prince, who is also reportedly part of the suit. “We are suing for damages of millions of dollars, and [suits] will be filed at both Swedish as well as U.S. courts,” Web Sheriff Chief Executive John Giacobbi told Swedish online business daily e24. “Many are asking themselves why they should be paying for content when it is widely available free of charge. But such thinking disregards the fact that someone has been creating this music or movie, and [has] invested huge sums of money in the project. Therefore it should be up to [the creators] to decide how and to whom their works are being distributed.”

Giacobbi, it should be noted, is calling upon other artists to join the suit in the hopes of giving it more critical mass and credibility, though his choice of artists may achieve quite the opposite. Said Giacobbi, “It would also be good/appropriate if the members of ABBA could take up the fight against these pirates, as they personify the Swedish music industry’s successes and are renowned ambassadors for Sweden, contrary to The Pirate Bay.”

One can only the imagine the fun the folks at The Pirate Bay, who’ve publicly ridiculed legal threats from everyone from Warner Bros. to Apple, are going to have with this one.