Here’s the old version of the Hulu Plus subscription app for the iPad:

And here’s the new version, built to comply with Apple edicts that kick in at the end of the month:

Easy, right? All Hulu had to do was strip out the link that sent potential subscribers to its Web site, because Apple’s new rule will ban “apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app.”

That means that the app can no longer function as an effective advertising tool for the video service, which is a bummer for Hulu (which is owned by Comcast’s NBC, Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox; News Corp. also owns this Web site). It’d be quite useful to offer a smattering of free content on the app, then encourage users who want more stuff to click through to Hulu.com to pony up $8 a month.

But that’s much better than the previous choice Apple offered app developers that wanted to sell access to content: Use Apple’s in-house purchase system — and give Apple 30 percent of all sales that flow from that — or don’t do it at all.

Lots of developers have no problem using Apple’s system, which gives them access to a customer base of 225 million people. But others won’t want to give up that much revenue.

So now we’ll see how other content companies that currently use external links in their apps decide to play it over the next couple weeks.

My hunch is that digital video and music companies like Netflix and Rhapsody will follow Hulu’s lead and drop their “buy” buttons. The New York Times has already said it would work with Apple’s rules, but that was back when it announced its paywall/subscription plan in March, when it had a different set of options. I asked Times officials about their plans 10 days ago, and they declined to comment.

Also not commenting: The Wall Street Journal — which again, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp. The Journal hasn’t said a peep about its Apple subscription plans, which seems a bit odd, given that News Corp. and Apple rolled out the first iteration of Apple’s subscription offering, via The Daily, back in February.

Rival business daily the Financial Times, meanwhile, has quite clearly signaled what it plans to do: It has built an HTML5 Web app so it can control every part of the subscription process itself.

Then there’s Amazon, which seems to be one of the clear targets of Apple’s revised rules – note that they specifically rule out the use of a “buy” button that goes to a Web site to purchase a digital book. Hard to believe that Amazon will get rid of its Kindle iOS apps altogether, since they’re a key feature of the Kindle ecosystem. But dropping the app’s “buy” button will be a real drag for the bookseller, too.

The move is important because:

• It’s the first major attempt by a publisher to create an HTML5-based Web app that for all intents and purposes works exactly like an iTunes-purchased app.
• It gives the FT a real alternative to iTunes if the FT doesn’t want to accept Apple’s subscription terms.

Apple’s subscription rules have rankled many content owners because they require them to hand over 30 percent of all subscription revenue, every month, for all “in-app” subscriptions sold through iPad and iPhone apps. Even more problematic for print publishers like Pearson’s FT is Apple’s insistence on keeping subscriber data like credit card information to itself.

But since Apple announced the new rules in February, a growing number of content companies, from the New York Times to MLB.com, have announced that they’ll accept them,

Some publishers, like Conde Nast and Hearst, have been able to wring small concessions out of Apple that give them a bit more flexibility, but the general gist remains the same; many content companies are now hoping that they’ll be able to convince most customers to subscribe to their content outside of iTunes, which will let them keep 100 percent of revenue and all subscriber data.

Apple’s deadline to accept the new terms kicks in later this month, and the FT has yet to declare if it’s going to play along. The FT, citing FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw (registration required), says the paper has “no plans to pull out of any apps store,” but that’s not the same as saying it plans to stick around, either. Note opening lines in the promotional video for the app’s, below: “The FT app is moving.”

Spokesman Tom Glover tells me the publisher is “still talking to Apple about the terms for selling subscriptions through iTunes.”

The Web app only works on iOS devices for now, but the paper says versions for Google’s Android platform are in the works. More technical details here.

UPDATE: The FT’s news reminds me that it’s a good time to check in with the Wall Street Journal, which like this Web site is owned by News Corp. The Journal, which has played up its success on Apple’s platform in the past, hasn’t said what it’s going to do about Apple’s subscription rules, and a spokeswoman says that hasn’t changed: “We’re exploring our options.”

The streaming music service is going to raise something like $100 million, at a valuation of $1 billion or more, very shortly, according to TechCrunch, the Financial Times, the New York Times and Sky News (?).

People who tell me they’re familiar with Spotify’s plans also tell me all of those publications are wrong. But they won’t be specific about why they’re wrong. So my hunch is that some combination of the total amount raised, the valuation and the investors may still be in flux. Or not.

Whatever. Sooner, or later, Spotify is set to cash a very big check. What’s it going to do with that money?

The easy assumption is that the company will turn around and redistribute its new investors’ funds to the big music labels, as part of the distribution deals it is cutting to get into the U.S.

Spotify already has deals with Sony and EMI, and is supposedly closing in on one with Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest label.

And as I wrote last fall, Spotify is willing to pay the labels real money over the life of these deals to get them done. But I don’t think the bulk of this cash goes immediately from DST, or Kleiner Perkins, or whomever, to UMG, Sony, et al.

For starters, I don’t think Spotify’s backers would be happy to serve as a direct funding source for the flailing labels. And remember that Spotify is a money-losing startup, so it would likely need cash to fund operations even if it was staying put.

But I think that Spotify is going to have to spend real money to break into America, which already has plenty of streaming music services, and doesn’t seem very interested in them.

A rough guesstimate is that Rhapsody, Napster, MOG, Rdio and Thumbplay have a total of about a million subscribers–about the same that Spotify has on its own. So in order to really make the case for music you rent by the month, Spotify is going to have to lay out serious marketing cash to get people to pay attention.

It will need to staff up, too: The company, based in Sweden and London, has a handful of people working in a small corner of Google’s New York City office, but that won’t be nearly enough to tackle the States.

The other big variable, which wasn’t on Spotify’s radar when it started looking for cash last year but certainly is now, is the impact of Apple’s new subscription plan. As described in Apple’s press release, that plan will lop 30 percent off of every subscription Spotify sells through Apple’s iTunes store.

Spotify, like every other music service, can’t live with that. So if Apple doesn’t back down, and U.S. or European regulators don’t force it to back down, Spotify will have two choices:

• It can market the heck out of the service on everywhere but Apple’s platform, and hope that the overwhelming majority of its signups happen via some other outlet, where they won’t have to pay Apple’s tariff.
• And/or it can spend a lot of time fighting Apple in court.

Either way, some extra cash might be handy. Good thing the company has some lined up.

That’s the question of the day for the TV and Web video world, prompted by a blog post Jason Kilar published last night.

It’s a lengthy read about the TV business and where it’s headed, and most people I’ve talked to today think it’s smart and well-written.

Some of them also believe Kilar wrote it so that his bosses–executives at News Corp.’s Fox, Disney’s ABC, and Comcast’s NBCU–will give him the hook.

That’s because a lot of what Kilar wrote challenges the TV networks’ existing business model: He argues that there are too many ads, and that consumers want to be able to watch their shows on demand, not on a linear schedule. And, crucially, he argues that the cable network bundle is on its way out.

In other words, change or become the music labels: “History has shown that incumbents tend to fight trends that challenge established ways and, in the process, lose focus on what matters most: customers.”

And all of that makes perfect sense. Except for the part where he says it in public, while working for a company owned by three TV networks.

Kilar’s post began making waves immediately last night, and the Financial Times’ Matthew Garrahan was able to quickly find several network executives who are agog at the post.

Most tellingly, he got a Disney rep to officially distance the company from Kilar’s post, stating that his views (published on the official Hulu blog) were “personal and clearly not shared by anyone at Walt Disney.”

In fact, his views are almost certainly shared by some Disney executives, and others at Hulu backers News Corp.’s Fox and Comcast’s NBCU. (News Corp. also owns this Web site.) It’s just that they have no intention of changing their business anytime soon. Especially now that they’ve gotten cable providers to start paying them for content they used to give away, via “retransmission” fees.

“80, 90 percent of what he says is right,” says an executive at one of Hulu’s network owners. “But why print that? Does he think we’re going to say, ‘Oh, thank you! You’re right! We’d never thought of that! Let’s give away retrans!’? I can’t see what he thinks will happen.”

So here’s one possibility: Kilar knows he can’t win. And his post is supposed to be his “Jerry Maguire moment”, as Garrahan puts it–a fireworks display you put on because you don’t want to work at your current job anymore.

The other possibility: Kilar genuinely thinks he can win.

Up until now the former Amazon executive has done a marvelous job of building a site everyone was convinced would fail, and then sustaining–and expanding–a joint venture everyone thought would collapse.

Kilar has pulled some of that off with brinkmanship. As last week’s well-reported Wall Street Journal piece notes, Kilar threatened to quit last fall, when he was trying to get the networks to agree to cut their monthly price for Hulu Plus. He didn’t get the 50 percent cut he’d been pushing for, but he still managed to get the networks to agree to cut the price by 20 percent, to $8.

Also note that Kilar’s post quite clearly argues that the path he’s pushing for will be better for the networks in the end: “We believe content owners are in a strong position to make higher returns from TV content distribution in the future than they have historically.”

But if Kilar thought his arguments would carry more force in public, he may well have miscalculated. This could all blow over with time, but for now, at least, he has some very bummed backers.

“Here’s the irony. Jason is probably best to lead Hulu. But he is also too righteous/robot to do it ‘the wrong way’ or a way he won’t agree with,” says an industry executive.

Another reports that network executives are “crazy, angry” over the post. “I’d be stunned if Jason was still there in 60 days.”

I’ve asked Kilar for additional comment. I don’t expect to get it.

From the FT:

HP is on track to deliver a tablet computer running webOS early next year, as well as a Windows-based tablet that will ship sooner, he said. It has abandoned a project to launch a smartphone based on Google’s Android open source operating system and there will be no tablet based on the system, Mr. Rubinstein said.

Seems HP did indeed reconsider its multi-OS strategy in light of the Palm acquisition and concluded that three operating systems was one too many–at least as far as mobile devices are concerned. For printers it’s just fine, as a commenter below notes.

Rental prices haven’t yet been set, but sources tell the FT that newer film titles would cost about $5–a bit more than the $.99 to $3.99 YouTube charges for the older films currently available in its fledgling pay-per-view catalog. Presumably, there will be some sort of integration with Google’s forthcoming Google TV platform, though details are scant.

If the company does manage to roll such a service out, we’ll soon see YouTube going head-to-head with Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes, Netflix (NFLX) and Hulu–and in a big way. YouTube’s reach is already quite broad–with the right deals in place Google (GOOG) could bring a powerful pay-per-view service to the desktop and mobile Web very quickly. “Google and YouTube are a global phenomenon with a hell of a lot of eyeballs–more than any cable or satellite service,” an executive with knowledge of the plans told the FT. “They’ve talked about how many people they could steer to this…it’s a huge number.”

Previously:

• Google Announces Web TV Google TV
• Why Will Google TV Be Any Different From WebTV? Or AOL TV? Or MSNTV? Or…

Totally awesome! That’s the paraphrased verdict from Coca-Cola (KO), which tried out the ads this week and generated 86 million impressions in 24 hours.

The actual quote from global interactive marketing boss Carol Kruse, via the Financial Times, is less exciting (because marketing people speak in a weird dialect that sounds nothing like everyday English): “The amount of impressions in such a short period of time around our whole World Cup campaign, to me it was a phenomenal time. It made this emotional connection at the time, it was great.”

The FT notes that Coke got a lot of bang for its buck by running the ads on Wednesday, when Twitter was overwhelmed by users tweeting about both the U.S.-Algeria and England-Slovenia World Cup games. Weirdly, the FT doesn’t note that Twitter struggled to stay up on Wednesday, due to said overwhelming use.

So maybe it was a push. In any case, it’s impossible to really evaluate this stuff unless you know how much Coke paid. And we don’t:

Coke’s Twitter messages congratulated the England and US teams, linked to videos on YouTube and invited people to “share their celebration” of their teams’ success.

Although Ms Kruse did not reveal how much Coke had spent on the campaign, she indicated that the test had not been expensive compared with other forms of online advertising.

“When it’s something new, it’s hard for publishers to know what the value is,” she said. “We didn’t know how it would work out but we wanted to learn in that space….It could have completely flopped. They [Twitter] also wanted to learn with us.”

Note to young people: I have a vague memory of this ad running in the 1980s. As I recall, it was in no way supposed to be a joke:

This time around, the CEO of the world’s biggest social network is making his case to advertisers at the annual advertising schmoozefest in Cannes. He’s scheduled to take the stage Wednesday afternoon, and his interviewer will be Advertising Age Editor Abbey Klaassen.

After Zuckerberg’s appearance at D8, I heard lots of chatter that he would have to stop taking questions in public. But unless the 26-year-old plans to stop running the company he founded, there’s no way that can happen. So best to get right back on the horse/bicycle/insert-your-own-metaphor here.

The good news for Zuckerberg: Facebook’s privacy issues don’t seem to have diminished advertisers’ interest in his site. Even better: After he makes his presentation, responsibility for the real pitching goes back to his large, expensive and top-shelf ad team, which has already helped the company rake in a lot of ad money.

Then again, they still have plenty of work to do. Financial Times:

Just two years after beginning to monetise its audience in earnest, Facebook’s revenue per user is already half the level of that achieved by portals such as MSN and Yahoo, Mr. Maude says. But relative to the many hours most users spend on Facebook each month, its income is “way behind” that of those more established sites.

Richard Pinder, chief operating officer of Publicis Worldwide, says Mr. Zuckerberg should keep his pitch to Cannes attendees simple.

“Most of the people making the big decisions [in ad spending] are not on Facebook,” he says. “They fear Facebook. Zuckerberg should explain what it is and why it works, and not make them feel bad about it.”

As I reported Tuesday, Apple’s revised data collection policies cripple Google’s (GOOG) ability to serve ads to iPhone and iPad apps. The new rules also box out other big mobile players, like Microsoft (MSFT) and Research in Motion (RIMM), if they aspire to get into the app ad business.

So that investigation can move along pretty quickly, right? Not much debate there. The issue is whether Apple (AAPL) has the right to do so, and that could make for an interesting discussion.

The reason is ostensibly security concerns related to the attack on its corporate network late last year. “We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” one Google employee told the FT. “Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.

Which makes some sense, given Windows’ history of security vulnerabilities. That said, Google’s increasingly vicious rivalry with Microsoft (MSFT) clearly plays a role here as well. As does the forthcoming launch of the search giant’s own competing operating system, Chrome OS.

This move by Google (GOOG) was inevitable and, frankly, a long time coming. To chalk it up simply to security issues is to ignore the bigger picture here, as Microsoft’s VP of corporate communications, Frank Shaw, wryly noted in some caustic tweets this morning. “News flash: Google boards up all windows in its global HQ, citing security concerns. Must credit FT,” he wrote. “News flash: Google bans Bing from its computers. Must credit FT. Picture on Bing home page is distracting to G engineers.”

With its admission last week that its Street View cars unwittingly captured data sent over unsecured wireless Wi-Fi networks, Google (GOOG) appears to have run afoul of regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sources familiar with the matter tell the Financial Times that the Federal Trade Commission is considering an inquiry into the matter, and the panel of European privacy regulators that advises the European Commission is calling for a full investigation to determine exactly what information was collected and whether the manner of its collection was a violation of privacy law.

The Europeans seem particularly miffed over the cock-up and Google’s explanation for it, which they find a bit suspect. Over the weekend, Peter Schaar, Germany’s federal commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, fired off a caustic blog post questioning the credibility of the company’s claim that personal data were collected accidentally.

“So everything was a simple oversight, a software error!” Schaar wrote. “The data was collected and stored against the will of the project’s managers and other managers at Google. If we follow this logic further, this means: The software was installed and used without being properly tested beforehand. Billions of bits of data were mistakenly collected, without anyone in Google noticing it, including Google’s own internal data protection managers, who two weeks ago were defending to us the company’s internal data protection practices.”

Have to admit, he does have a point. How does a company with Google’s smarts and technological acumen collect and store Wi-Fi network payload data in more than 30 countries for three years without being aware of it?

Mistakes are made, I suppose. But the breadth of this one is pretty incredible. As Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the Financial Times, “This may be one of the most massive surveillance incidents by a private corporation that has ever occurred. It is unprecedented vacuuming of WiFi data by a private company. Can you imagine what would happen if a German corporation was sending cars through Washington sucking up all this information?”

Yes, but to err is human…

Though the company’s fast-declining fortunes might suggest its endgame is either buyout or bankruptcy, things aren’t quite so dour–not according to Rubinstein, anyway. The commercial success that has so far eluded Palm isn’t unobtainable, he says, it’s just, you know…a bit farther off than than the company and its investors would like.

“I believe Palm can survive as an independent company,” Rubinstein told the Financial Times. “We have a plan that gets us to profitability.”

Sadly, Rubinstein didn’t provide much detail about the plan beyond the just-you-wait-and-see promises we’ve heard from him before. “[We're working] fast and furious on new handsets,” he said. “We do have a strong pipeline of products in the future.”

Rubinstein also noted that Palm (PALM) would consider licensing its webOS mobile operating system to other companies, given the right circumstances. “Of course we would licence webOS because obviously the more scale we get the more the benefit there is to us.”

Obviously.

But this, too, is something we’re heard from Rubinstein before. And without any insight into how such licensing deals would be structured or who might be interested in them, it’s tough put much faith in them.

To me, these claims, and some others made in this “upbeat” MarketWatch interview, read like simple posturing–the CEO of a foundering company positioning it for a sale with some always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life proclamations. Conjure a vision of new killer handsets and lucrative licensing deals, do your best to breathe some life into the stock and hope for a good price when you’re finally up on the block.

Maybe I’m wrong. We’ll see.

This seems to have been a busy week for Demand Media CEO and founder Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), with news of a big-banker hiring in a pending IPO of his social media start-up and the possible sale of a digital marketing company where he serves as chairman.

Indeed, Demand has hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to prep its initial public offering, sources told BoomTown, which the company is expected to file in August at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

This confirms an earlier report in the Financial Times.

The price has to be high, given that Rosenblatt has managed to raise an eye-popping $355 million from a slate of high-profile backers, including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners and well-known media investor Gordon Crawford.

Rosenblatt essentially signaled his intent to move to the public markets with the recent nabbing of high-profile advertising exec Joanne Bradford from Yahoo (YHOO).

Her job: To quickly turbocharge Demand’s business as chief revenue officer. The company now does about $250 million in annual revenue, mostly from advertising.

Rosenblatt, who was part of the team that sold MySpace to News Corp. (NWS) for $650 million, could also be about to score another big-time sale.

This time, it is digital marketing firm iCrossing, sources said, in a deal with media giant Hearst Corp., which could close in the next two weeks, if all goes well.

First reported in The Wall Street Journal, the price for the large Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm is hovering at about $375 million.

Not coincidentally, with Rosenblatt in common, iCrossing shares investors with Demand, including Goldman Sachs and Oak.

Here’s hoping Rosenblatt will be able to talk about all this and more in an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June.

He will appear in a session at D8 with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica.

The less lofty content created by Demand and others, such as AOL (AOL), using algorithms and other means, has attracted controversy, with worries about its impact on the traditional media business.

This seems to have been a busy week for Demand Media CEO and founder Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), with news of a big-banker hiring in a pending IPO of his social media start-up and the possible sale of a digital marketing company where he serves as chairman.

Indeed, Demand has hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to prep its initial public offering, sources told BoomTown, which the company is expected to file in August at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

This confirms an earlier report in the Financial Times.

The price has to be high, given that Rosenblatt has managed to raise an eye-popping $355 million from a slate of high-profile backers, including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners and well-known media investor Gordon Crawford.

Rosenblatt essentially signaled his intent to move to the public markets with the recent nabbing of high-profile advertising exec Joanne Bradford from Yahoo (YHOO).

Her job: To quickly turbocharge Demand’s business as chief revenue officer. The company now does about $250 million in annual revenue, mostly from advertising.

Rosenblatt, who was part of the team that sold MySpace to News Corp. (NWS) for $650 million, could also be about to score another big-time sale.

This time, it is digital marketing firm iCrossing, sources said, in a deal with media giant Hearst Corp., which could close in the next two weeks, if all goes well.

First reported in The Wall Street Journal, the price for the large Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm is hovering at about $375 million.

Not coincidentally, with Rosenblatt in common, iCrossing shares investors with Demand, including Goldman Sachs and Oak.

Here’s hoping Rosenblatt will be able to talk about all this and more in an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June.

He will appear in a session at D8 with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica.

The less lofty content created by Demand and others, such as AOL (AOL), using algorithms and other means, has attracted controversy, with worries about its impact on the traditional media business.

Want to buy an e-reader from Plastic Logic? You will have to wait until “sometime this summer.” Want to buy the whole company? That’s a different story.

That’s the message U.K. investor Hermann Hauser is delivering via the Financial Times (via Engadget). Hauser, who owns a chunk of Plastic Logic via his Amadeus Capital Partners, doesn’t come out and say the company is for sale. But he spends a chunk of the story explaining why someone would be smart to take the investment off his hands.

Why would that be? Plastic Logic, after all, has been in the e-reader business for years, but has yet to actually start selling one. It finally showed off its Que Reader in January and promised delivery in April. But last month, the company told customers the Que would be delayed until summer–practically daring them to buy a competing product from Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Sony (SNE) or Barnes and Noble (BKS).

Hauser’s pitch: Plastic Logic is a technology company whose real value is the plastic chips that power the Que.

“Plastic Logic is using the simplest invention in plastic electronics, a single transistor that switches a particular pixel on or off,” says Mr Hauser. The real potential, he explains, is in creating plastic integrated circuits capable of complex functions, a feat that Plastic Logic co-founder Henning Sirringhaus has just achieved. Mr Hauser says: “Plastic electronics will spawn dozens of companies taking advantage of different aspects of integrated circuits in the same way that silicon has.”

How much is that worth? The FT helpfully suggests a buyer should pony up a multiple of the $200 million Hauser and others have bet on the company. But if that’s above your spending limit, you should be able to get a Que for less than $800 in a couple months.

Scratch China Unicom from the list of Google’s Chinese search partners. The Financial Times reports that the carrier, China’s second largest, dumped Google’s search service from the Android smartphones it’s adding to its smartphone lineup.

An obvious and, I suppose, inevitable response to Google’s recent defiance of the Chinese government. Said Unicom’s president Lu Yimin: “We are willing to work with any company that abides by Chinese law…we don’t have any co-operation with Google currently.”

Bad news for Google (GOOG), which until recently seemed poised to do quite well in the world’s largest cellphone market. As the Los Angeles Times notes, “although it is a distant second on computer searches, Google is nearly tied for first with China’s Baidu Inc. for market share in China’s nascent mobile-search sector.”

Evidently, not for long. I imagine we’ll be hearing of a similar move by China Mobile in the near future.