Today in Connected Consumer

Newly installed News Corp. president, Chase Carey, hinted strongly at an industry event Thursday that Hulu will try to put the free genie back in the bottle by introducing subscription fees. The blog- and Twitter-spheres get the vapors over the reports. Even some (more or less) mainstream outlets saw dark forces at work. Not everyone’s having a cow over the news, though. Dave Zazt of Zazt Not Funny thinks a pay service could cure Hulu’s “random-crap syndrome.” Another theory: Putting up a pay wall around Hulu has more to do with Fox’s upcoming retransmission-consent negotiations with cable operators than with free web content.