This should change early next year, but in the most limited way. Hulu plans to let users in the U.K., and most likely, other countries, access its U.S. site to watch a single show: The made-for-the Web reality series, “If I Can Dream.”

The show comes via 19 Entertainment, owner and creator of the “American Idol” franchise, and has a similar theme: It will follow five would-be stars as they try to make their way as actors, singers, etc. They’ll live in a Hollywood house wired with HD cameras and microphones, and viewers will be able to follow them live, seven days a week, via a streaming Web video site.

That footage will be edited down to a 30-minute weekly highlights show for Hulu. And that’s the show that should provide many international viewers with their first glimpse of Hulu, owned by GE’s (GE) NBC, News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and Disney’s (DIS) ABC.

The press release announcing “If I Can Dream” says “it will be the first recurring show to be available to select international audiences via Hulu,” though it doesn’t spell out which countries or a time frame. But I’m told the series is set to start running early next year and that the U.K., where 19 Entertainment is based, is one of the countries slated to get access.

There’s still a possibility that the international plans could fall through. However, 19 Entertainment owns the show outright, which ought to make things easy. And both Ford (F) and Pepsi (PEP), which have already signed on to underwrite much of the show’s costs, advertise internationally, which ought to make things even easier.

But since “If I Can Dream” will use recorded music as a soundtrack, clearing the rights to every song in every territory could pose a problem.

That uncertainty should also help explain why Hulu has taken so long to expand the rest of the site to other countries: Even when Hulu finds major TV partners that want to work with it–which isn’t always a given–sorting out rights problems for every show or movie can be a lot of work.

Meanwhile, a few notes on “If I Can Dream”:

• Hulu and 19 Entertainment, which is owned by Bob Sillerman’s CKX (CKXE) licensing shop, don’t seem exactly sure how to describe the new venture. Hulu’s press release calls it a “post-reality entertainment show.” But 19 Entertainment’s PR guy asked me specifically to avoid calling it a reality show. “It’s a Web experience,” he explains. Okay, then.
• Whatever you want to call it, at least parts of “If I Can Dream” will seem familiar: There’s the Peeping Tom component of “Big Brother,” mixed with “Idol’s” star-making. And if we’re lucky, some drunken debauchery a la “The Real World.”
• The most interesting element is the show’s path to Hulu: 19 Entertainment originally pitched the show to broadcast and cable networks, which hemmed and hawed, I’m told. But sources say Hulu jumped at the chance to run the show as an exclusive. Theoretically, if it does well enough on the Web, it could end up on conventional TV next year, too. But “If I Can Dream” is designed to turn a profit without leaving the Internet.
• The show is synergized from the get-go: In addition to the Ford, Pepsi and Hulu connections, it will also use promotion from News Corp.’s MySpace, which will help run a talent search to find new faces as the old ones cycle out. And Clear Channel (CCO) will use its network of radio stations to promote the talent.
• The cast of five seems to be composed of exceptionally good-looking people. If you’re trying to view this clip from outside the U.S., you’ll have to take my word for it:

Pepsi’s (PEP) Amp energy drink issued an apology for its new iPhone app, called Before You Score, which drew outrage from some female consumers who deemed the application sexist.

Amp tweeted, “Our app tried 2 show the humorous lengths guys go 2 pick up women. We apologize if it’s in bad taste & appreciate your feedback,” and even included a self-deprecating “pepsifail” hashtag.

The Before You Score app drew ire for its male-centric approach to categorizing women, calling itself “a roadmap to success with your favorite kinds of women–24, in all.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

So says video views tracker TubeMogul, which illustrates its argument via a nifty interactive chart at the bottom of this post.

If you don’t like charts, here are some words: Unauthorized clips of Jackson’s July 7 funeral/memorial generated 16.6 million views on Google’s (GOOG) YouTube within 48 hours. But copies of newly unearthed footage from 1984, which shows Jackson’s hair going up in flames as he filmed a Pepsi commercial, are barely making a ripple, comparatively. Tubemogul says the clip generated fewer than 800,000 views in a 24-hour stretch.

Important distinction here: Tubemogul is tracking video views only. Anecdotally, there’s plenty of evidence that people are still interested in reading about Jackson online, especially as more and more lurid stories get out. But the YouTube audience, it seems, has moved on.

I feel a little funny about linking to or embedding the hair-fire clip. It has a sort of snuff-film quality to it, especially with the ghoulish music and commentary layered on by US Weekly, which says it has “exclusive” access to the video. But it’s easy enough to find if you want to gawk.

Here’s a more pleasant one:

Right? No, says Bonin Bough.

Admittedly, Bough has a bias here, since he gets paid by a big company–PepsiCo (PEP)–to oversee its digital and social media. But for the time being, at least, Pepsi is still letting Bough spend time and money on newfangled outlets, even though it’s not exactly clear how the company is going to able to use them to sell more soda.

Example for the day: Pepsi’s sponsorship of BlogTalkRadio, an Internet radio start-up that is Webcasting from South by Southwest this week (Pepsi is also sponsoring SXSW in general). Like lots of other Web media, radio/streaming audio is challenging for marketers to get their heads around since the traditional metrics they use to measure their campaigns don’t really exist. But Bough says his company is willing to experiment anyway.

Bough and I talked about Web radio, video, and Twitter yesterday  (note to Twitter guys–the “authentication/verification” strategy some of you are talking about doesn’t seem that appealing to Pepsi) on BlogTalkRadio. I’ve embedded the conversation below. Apologies for meandering, amateurish aspects of the chat, which are entirely my fault. Talking on the radio, it turns out, is really hard.

Super Bowl XLIII is nearly upon us, multimillion dollar ads in tow, and since there’s never been as much video, connectivity or interactivity as there is right now, the whole thing is shaping up to be quite the Web 2.0 extravaganza.

From YouTube to Twitter to Facebook and beyond, here’s your guide to all the digital venues available to view, vote on and even interact with in this year’s lineup of ad campaigns.

There is no shortage of sites on which to watch (and rewatch, again and again) the ads: NBC, the game’s official broadcaster, Spike, YouTube, and Hulu, to name just a few (see below for a list). Many of these sites have already aggregated a number of previews and will allow you to vote for your favorite commercials or rank them.

Speaking of Hulu, the video site has created a customizable Super Bowl ad widget that will allow you to display and vote on the ads and can be embedded into Web sites or blogs. The Hulu folks have also been spreading some talk about how they will “reveal the secret behind Hulu” during Super Bowl Sunday. Really, Hulu? We are sweating in anticipation (not).

Many of the companies whose ads will be featured during the game also have content on their corporate Web sites. Some–like the Orlando Sentinel–are playing coy, releasing only teaser clips about their actual ad–essentially creating a commercial about a commercial. It has something to do with a kid in a cape, accompanied by some very somber background piano music.

Others have already released full versions of their ads online. Internet domain company Go Daddy has put two titillating ads up on its site starring sexy race car driver Danica Patrick, fresh from her big debut last year. The company will also feature Internet-only ads with a more salacious spin on the made-for-TV ones.

Meanwhile, sites like Spotbowl and Superbowl-Ads have aggregated lots of information about the commercials. Spotbowl has collected industry rumors and reports and boasts a fairly detailed list of all of this year’s ad sponsors, noting the type of commercial(s) each will play and behind-the-scenes information on many of them.

Superbowl-Ads presents perhaps the most complete Web 2.0 package, which will not only feature the commercials online, but has established a Facebook and Twitter presence as well. Its Facebook site features much of the same content as the site, but also has a video viewer, news tracker apps and discussion board.

And you can even befriend the famous Etrade Baby, who will make another appearance this year. Find him on Twitter under “etradebaby,” although he hasn’t had much to say so far. At the time of this writing, his most recent, and rather cryptic, message was, “I have very little time or patience for clowns.”

You can also follow Superbowl-Ads on Twitter under “superbowlad,” or search #superads09 and #sb43ads for a constant stream of relevant links, information and chatter leading up to and going into the big game.

Meanwhile, Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang will be conducting a “TwitterBowl” experiment during the game whereby you can send in your votes to @superbowlads (with an “s” at the end), commenting on the ads and giving each a rating of up to five stars.

Even iTunes is in on the party this year, as you’ll be able to download original music from Pepsi’s SoBe Lifewater ad. Said commercial is one of the few that will be shown in 3-D, provided that you’ve picked up your new 3-D glasses, since the old red-and-blues won’t do the trick, apparently.

So digitally speaking, you’re all ready for the big game. That is, unless, you were looking for actual information about that big game, in which case you’d probably do better somewhere else.

Super Bowl ad watch sites:

NBC
Hulu
Spike
Superbowl-ads
Spotbowl
NFL
Fanhouse
Myspace
Youtube
Adweek

The video card is part of a recent deal the online video creators just inked with BermanBraun Media–an independent production company headed by Hollywood players Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman–to make personalized ads using JibJab’s comic head-cut digital short technology.

The videos, which users can create for free with an ad at the start from Diet Pepsi Max, is the first major initiative for BermanBraun’s online division using Pepsi-sponsored online content.

BermanBraun announced a deal last July with PepsiCo to support original entertainment content developed for online platforms.

You can see one with a 10-second pre-roll ad embedded here, as well as another one here called “Menorah Hora,” which stars Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Page’s soon-to-be wife Lucy Southworth (Happy wedding this weekend!), as well as YouTube’s Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.

Is there a trend in my post yesterday about the deal former Hollywood execs Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman struck with Pepsi to make original online content that the entertainment and marketing arm of the beverage giant will have a chance to fund and sponsor?

“We want to create great online content … and also something that is more than a glorified Internet ad at the same time,” said Braun to me yesterday. “So we’ll work with Pepsi hand-in-hand to bake new kinds of ad solutions right in organically at the earliest possible moment.”

What struck me was that this was also the same line being touted by Facebook ad sales majordomo Mike Murphy, whom I interviewed Tuesday about what it will take to make the popular social-network site as popular with advertisers. (See video below again.)

Bandying about the phrase, “return on involvement,” he noted that it was his job to show marketers that becoming part of the conversation could be as important as much-measured click-through rates.

“Banners are great for branding, but this is a more relevant message that leverages social media,” said Murphy. “If we can help you make your idea or product relevant to a consumer and get the best involvement rate … it’s a different game.”

And then last month Valleywag posted here on an amazingly idiotic roundelay about a group of bloggers associated with John Battelle’s Federated Media being part of a Microsoft ad campaign, by weighing in on what the software giant’s “people ready” catchphrase meant to them.

I was going to write about it, and even talked to Om Malik (he was sorry and withdrew from the campaign) and Battelle (not so sorry, noting to me that how we all look at marketing has changed in the new paradigm).

But the prospect of headache-inducing debates about it that would go precisely nowhere stopped me cold. I come from an Italian family and I know from pointless arguments.

My own conclusion was that, even with all the disclosure, which could have been a lot better, it was probably a dicey and even flat-out wrong thing for most bloggers to do.

Except apparently for Michael “Pound Sand” Arrington, who doesn’t appear to care what most anyone thinks anyway. (Are you looking at me?)

But Battelle has kept bringing up another interesting phrase called “conversational marketing”–which again refers to engaging audiences more deeply with advertisers. Federated, in fact, is having a “Conversational Marketing Summit” in mid-September, with a laundry list of Web marketing honchos.

It apparently “brings together leaders in conversational media and marketing for a two-day dialog around the issues, lessons and opportunities of this emerging medium.”

I, for one, am looking forward to understanding what it all means, despite the fact my initial reaction is suspicious, as a reporter who naturally worries about the sidling up of ad-sales people to the editorial process.

That feeling of distaste was articulated by Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee, who wrote that the Pepsi deal “sounds kind of sleazy, honestly.”

Well, we shall see, of course, and this is just entertainment we’re talking about. And, perhaps more important, it seems to be an inevitable drift, given trends toward increased interactivity by consumers, especially younger ones.

“A lot of online content is already developed and ads and marketing are slapped on afterward,” Russell Weiner, vice president of marketing for colas at Pepsi-Cola North America told me yesterday. “We want to be part of the DNA of a show from the very beginning.”

And that, I think, is what they call the origin of the species. What species that might be, we shall all see soon enough.

That Hollywood term refers to giving Pepsi Entertainment the first opportunity to be part of any idea the pair develops. Pepsi could then pass on whatever concept it wants to, even though it might still have a financial interest in the content.

Berman, Braun and Pepsi executives would not be specific about the financing agreements between them or other details about the type of content they will be creating, although such material is likely to cost well under a million dollars per project, relatively inexpensive by old-media standards.

But both sides touted the arrangement as a new kind of marketing and entertainment partnership designed to take advantage of trends toward increased interactivity by consumers, especially younger ones.

“We want to create great online content … and also something that is more than a glorified Internet ad at the same time,” said Braun today. “So we’ll work with Pepsi hand-in-hand to bake new kinds of ad solutions right in organically at the earliest possible moment.”

Pepsi officials said the more interactive nature of sites like Facebook and MySpace meant it needed to look for all sorts of different ways to touch consumers, well beyond techniques in place now that still center on click-through banner ads.

“A lot of online content is already developed and ads and marketing are slapped on afterward,” said Russell Weiner, vice president of marketing for colas at Pepsi-Cola North America, whose brands include the flagship Pepsi, as well as Mountain Dew, Aquafina and Sierra Mist. “We want to be part of the DNA of a show from the very beginning.”

What that means is unclear, and both sides said that just creating too-obvious Pepsi tie-ins would not work.

While a lot of other independent producers like Mark Burnett work closely with advertisers from the start, which essentially results in a lot of product placement, Berman and Braun hope to change the way marketing messages are integrated into content and, perhaps more important, how content online will be funded.

So far, that part of the equation has been a vexing one, with no clear “hits” on the Web as yet, except for viral user-generated content on sites like YouTube.

Although many sites pull in big traffic, like the AOL-owned celebrity site TMZ.com, most professionally produced content has had less success. There have been a lot of single successes, like the popular JibJab cartoon satires.

Braun said he had hoped to change that at Yahoo, which once had big plans to enter this arena, capped by Braun’s hiring by former CEO Terry Semel. It did not work out that way for a variety of reasons, including a pullback by Yahoo and shift of resources to search products.

But he did have a good experience with Pepsi with the creation of one popular property on Yahoo, “The 9,” a daily online show about hot entertainment and digital trends. Pepsi is still the site’s sponsor; the 10th link of the day is called the Pepsi 10 and is selected by a user.

Braun said he went right to the beverage company after he left Yahoo and he and Berman formed their Los Angeles-based production company BermanBraun.

While they have both called it a “multiplatform” company and said they wanted to include Internet and film elements, its first deal was with NBC Universal, giving it a first look at content they produce for television.

Berman has long been considered one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, but left her job as president of Paramount in January after a corporate shake-up.

And Braun’s rocky tenure as head of Yahoo’s Media Group ended in February, with Braun leaving the Internet giant without completing the ambitious online entertainment plans he was brought in to shepherd.

Both Berman and Braun, close personal friends, were also longtime competitors–she ran the entertainment arm of the Fox network for five years starting in 2000, while Braun headed ABC’s entertainment efforts until he went to Yahoo in 2004.

Both are longtime hit-makers: Berman is credited with green-lighting shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “24,” while Braun is credited with pushing “Lost” onto the air.

After all this big-company experience, both were looking for a new setup, based on the indie-model with a twist.

“We have always seen this as a cross-platform company,” said Berman. “It is sort of a mini-studio, thinking about all the different mediums to create in.”

Berman and Braun said a head of its Internet group will soon be appointed and a digital content studio will be established in Santa Monica, Calif.

Pepsi’s Weiner said he thought Internet content creation and new ad solutions were still in their formative stages, even though his company thinks the Web will increasingly become a way for products to be marketed, well beyond simple ad placement.

He noted he had a good experience with Facebook, for example, when Pepsi did a campaign to let users design can logos, but he cannot yet imagine how it might all develop.

“I don’t even know if there will be ads attached to this content, especially if our brand is integrated well into the show,” he said. “It is so early, no one has really taken a peel off the onion yet.”

An interesting metaphor, given that Braun’s first experience with Yahoo might have been said to produce tears.

He would not comment on his tenure at Yahoo and its inability to leverage its power more effectively in the entertainment space. But he also said that he thinks it is still early in the game for the medium.

“We want to be Internet-centric, but it also has to be good from a pure entertainment perspective, while offering up something fresh to both consumers and advertisers,” he said. “This is not yesterday’s Internet.”

Are you listening, Yahoo?