Hulu, the free online video service run by aliens, launched a desktop application last month.

This new change makes it even easier to catch up on South Park without the cumbersome act of opening a browser, and adds additional couch-potato-friendly features such as integration with Windows Media or Apple remote.

Hulu Desktop is free, Flash-based and runs on Mac and Windows operating systems. Bolstered by partnerships with nearly 150 content companies including FOX, NBC Universal, Comedy Central, Lionsgate, MGM, MTV Networks, National Geographic, Paramount, PBS, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros, Hulu has successfully built a brand with a massive selection of high-quality programming and a high-visibility advertising campaign.

Hulu’s two major competitors, Google (You Tube XL) and Boxee, each have advantages and drawbacks; brinksmanship in this market definitely drive quality, access and usability for the lucky viewers.

Hulu has established a great position with a clever brand, and marketing that differentiates its content from the home video-type content that rocketed YouTube to internet stardom in the past few years. Here’s a few more reasons why we like it over the competitors:

The interface is intuitive and practical – it’s always easy to find every menu item you desire including video information, screen shot navigation, closed captioning and most of all……you can add videos to a queue in one click, which plays well to those of us who are better at finding interesting videos than remembering that we wanted to watch in the first place.But the Hulu Desktop app still has some room to grow:

After some back and forth with the Hulu Labs support team (thanks Daniel) I resolved a server error and everything was up and running without any additional issues. The app is demanding, requiring at least a 1.8-gigahertz Core Duo processor and two gigabytes of RAM. Older PCs, and certainly netbooks, will be hard pressed to successfully run a sitcom.

The Hulu Desktop is designed to emulate your television, dropping some of the community and network features found in the web applications including access to reviews and discussions, as well as tools for editing clips that you can send to friends or embed in a Web page.

But really, those issues are bearable. The social networking features, I’m sure will emerge as the product evolves. The technical issues probably won’t impact the target audience – the folks that are completely comfortable consuming streaming media – and have the hardware to handle it.