But instead of writing these “SideShows” itself, the company is giving users and TV networks tools to create their own time-stamped text commentary tracks. So a fashion-conscious viewer could plug in product information corresponding to when a character wore an item on screen. Or a sports network could feed live stats alongside a game broadcast.

SideShows will only work for watchers who have DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse, which have a direct connection to Miso to tell the app what a user is currently watching. Though that’s kind of a big limiting factor, it means the SideShows work with both live and recorded programs.

San Francisco-based Miso recently raised $4 million in new funding led by Vinod Khosla at Khosla Ventures.

And then there’s Google. The search giant has also made an offer for the video site, but it seems to be playing a different sport than the rest of its peers: Rather than bid on what Hulu’s owners have offered for sale, Google has proposed a different acquisition, on a larger scale, say people familiar with the sales process.

I don’t have details on the Google offer. And there’s some debate about whether Google has actually made a formal bid yet, or has simply indicated that it’s still willing to spend a lot of money.

But by looking at what Google’s competitors are offering, you can get a sense of what’s in play. As the Financial Times reported this weekend, Yahoo, Amazon and Dish are all expected to offer between $1.5 billion and $2 billion for Hulu, in exchange for the free video site, its subscription service and the rights to exclusive content for at least two years.

Google seems to want something much more than that, and is willing to pay much more to get it. If you want to speculate, you could imagine Google asking for access to more content, for a longer period of time, and perhaps offering up a couple billion dollars more.

Since that’s not what Hulu’s owners have put on the table, “normally we would have thrown people out if they’d said that,” says an executive familiar with the sales process. But Google “indicated that there’s enough money” involved so that Hulu’s owners are at least thinking about continuing the discussion.

One big problem with the Google proposal: Hulu was created in large part as the TV networks’ response to YouTube, and their fear that Google would swallow up the Web video ecosystem.

And in large part, Google has. YouTube is by far the biggest video site in the world, and the one part where it’s struggled is in landing long-form premium content that Hulu owns. So are the networks any more willing to hand over their most valuable programming today?

On the other hand, you can see how an over-the-top bid would appeal to Google CEO Larry Page, who has been making some sweeping moves since he stepped into office in April. Google executives made a point of saying that their $12.5 billion deal for Motorola wouldn’t stop them from making other big acquisitions.  And since any big-ticket buy Google proposes is going to get heavy government scrutiny anyway, why not make it worth Google’s while?

Still, Hulu’s owners don’t seem entirely convinced that they want to sell the site at all. Disney CEO Bob Iger told reporters earlier this summer that he intended to sell the site, but News Corp. chief operating officer Chase Carey has floated the notion Hulu’s owners will hang on to it. (News Corp. also owns this Web site).

We may hear more soon: Hulu’s owners are scheduled to discuss the array of bids later this week.

Actually, even if you are watching on a big screen, it’s worth playing with the NBC webcast, just for fun: I’ve tried it a couple of times over the past couple of years, and it’s pretty good: The main attraction is the extra camera angles–in the past, they’ve included a shot dedicated exclusively to Favre, which I like. (Some of you, I realize, may choose other angles.)

This is a great, commonsense offering from NBC and the NFL: There’s absolutely no reason to watch football on a PC unless you have to, so it’s hard to see them losing eyeballs here.

Which means every Web visit–and Web dollar or dime–they do get is purely additive. (Note to those of you who like to gripe about this stuff–you will need to have Microsoft’s (MSFT) Silverlight installed to watch the stream.)

But don’t get used to it. After tonight’s game, NBC and the NFL are only offering this once a week, during NBC’s Sunday-night game. And it goes away entirely once the playoffs start. Beyond that, if you want to watch the NFL on the Web, you’ve either got to pay through the nose for a DirectTV package or try to find an illegal stream.

Meanwhile, note the utter absence of a Web marketing campaign telling you about the NBC feed. It’s been up and running since 2008, but I had to reach out to NBC this morning to confirm that it’s still extant.

It’s easy to understand why the Web games are a quiet experiment, unfortunately: NBC and the other broadcasters–CBS (CBS), News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and Disney’s (DIS) ABC are paying the NFL a collective $3 billion a year in license fees. So both sides have an incentive, for now, to keep the games a TV-only experience.

Big sports–and pro football in particular–are one of the last bastions of old-style TV economics. Once you see cheap and legal access to the games on the Web, on a regular basis, you’ll know that the TV/Web convergence is here for good.

Verizon (VZ) quietly announced last week that it was done seeking out new markets for Fios, which means that cities like Boston, Baltimore and Alexandria, Va., won’t ever get access to the service. But the company will continue to expand its footprint in cities it’s already in, like New York.

The telco says it had always planned on winding down its expansion after spending $23 billion to upgrade its network. But its competitors are certainly treating this as a victory, and the halt will fuel speculation that Verizon will end up buying satellite broadcaster DirectTV (DTV) in order to compete with cable guys like Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (TWC) coast-to-coast.

More from The Wall Street Journal:

FiOS is Verizon’s counter to the cable companies’ Internet phone service, which has been successful in nabbing away telco customers. Despite FiOS’s presence, cable providers such as Cablevision Systems Corp. have weathered the competitive storm. The other telcos have also been upgrading their networks to deliver more services, but they haven’t been as aggressive…

For Verizon, it’s still unclear whether the bet will pay off. Mr. Kula said that in markets that FiOS is available, it has achieved 25% penetration for television service and 28% for Internet.

Growth in FiOS appears to be slowing. In the fourth quarter, Verizon added 153,000 customers each for FiOS Internet and TV, which was down sequentially and from a year ago. In total, the company has 3.4 million FiOS Internet and 2.9 million TV subscribers.

The idea is to protect cable subscription revenues by giving pay TV customers–but only pay TV customers–Web access to all the shows they get on TV, and hoping this keeps them from canceling their subscriptions.

But that’s old news: Comcast (CMCSA) already told Bloomberg earlier this month that the two companies are linking up, and that Time Warner (TWX) would offer programming from some of its networks in the first part of Comcast’s tests.

Presumably Bewkes and Roberts will offer up a few more details, like which Time Warner networks are participating (good bet: TNT and/or TBS), along with a timetable. But I worry that the press conference will be light on details, in large part because many of the details haven’t been hammered out yet.

Still, I’ve been able to glean more from industry executives who’ve been involved in discussions with Time Warner, Comcast and other players in the authentication effort, which Bewkes has been calling “TV Everywhere” and Roberts has been calling “OnDemand Online.” Some of the details:

• The test will start very small–with some 5,000 subscribers–but Comcast is determined to expand it aggressively and wants to have it available throughout its system by the end of the year. Comcast plans to use its Fancast video portal as a hub for its efforts. And it  may use other digital assets it has acquired as well. Online Rolodex Plaxo, for instance, which the company bought last year, could be used to help subscribers sign in to watch their shows.
• The test is separate from Time Warner Cable’s (TWC) own authentication offering, which is essentially the same thing but will launch later than the Comcast test, using different technology, and will likely offer a different mix of programming.
• And those tests are separate from the one that telcos Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) have been working on with satellite operators Echostar (SATS) and DirecTV (DTV). That one also has the same thrust, but will take the longest to roll out.
• Comcast isn’t likely to announce other programming partners for the tests until later this month.
• Hulu is interested in playing along, because its owners–GE’s (GE) NBC, News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and Disney’s (DIS) ABC–see authentication as a way to appease riled-up cable providers. The cable guys are upset that Hulu shows (some) cable programs for free while they have to pay for the right to air them. In theory, authentication solves that problem for Hulu because everyone will be on a level playing field: Only cable subscribers will get access to cable programming, whether it’s on Hulu, Fancast or anywhere else. But the cable guys aren’t rushing to let Hulu in just yet.
• Separately, NBC has been talking about offering some cable programming that isn’t already on Hulu for the tests. That could also be seen as an appeasement move, but I’ve heard a more benign suggestion: NBC merely wants to figure out if authentication technology works because it is considering using it for some of its coverage of the Vancouver Olympics next year.
• CBS (CBS), which isn’t a part of Hulu and which doesn’t have any cable assets of its own, would still like to get into the mix. The idea is that the network would offer the cable guys shows that it has kept offline until now (say, “The Mentalist”) while tying the Web programming to “retransmission” fees it would like to extract from the cable companies for all of its shows. Comcast executives seem amenable to the notion.
• Big cable players like Viacom (VIA) and Liberty’s (LINTA) Discovery may participate in some trials but not others. Viacom, for instance, has been talking about working with the telco group but not with Comcast during the trials. It has also discussed offering a “premium product”–like access to the full “Spongebob Squarepants” library or other kids’ shows that have a very limited online profile–to Time Warner Cable subscribers for an additional fee.

Bewkes and Roberts are scheduled to speak at the Time Warner Center at 9:45 am EDT, so we’ll know more shortly.

Why the sudden interest in a renewed partnership? Could be the recent change in management at DirecTV, which was taken over by Liberty Media (LINTA) in an $11 billion asset swap with News Corp. (NWS) (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and of this Web site). Or could it be that DirecTV simply saw the writing on the wall after TiVo successfully sued Dish for infringing on its patented time-warp technology?

Perhaps a little of both, hmm?