Last month Facebook and Warner Bros. entered into a licensing agreement to stream “The Dark Knight” over the social network, available for rent with credits on the site, to the tune of about $3. Now more films have been added, including two “Harry Potter” films and recent blockbuster “Inception.”

And with that, Facebook is dipping into the digital media delivery service, but what does Facebook hope to gain here? Netflix is the king here, Hulu is hoping for action, and iTunes will always have the Apple ecosystem to summon users.

Facebook could be a powerful tool for digital media sales: more than films, but encompassing television, apps, and music. After all, consider the social aspect of sharing films, reviews, comments — imagine the ability to watch a film with friends across the site, commenting in real time. When a friend posts or links to media, instant delivery of that medium.

That’s a jump in logical progression. But it’s not to fanciful. And perhaps this is what Facebook is going with here, or perhaps not.

The point is Facebook is putting feelers out. It’s been constantly testing the potential of its expanses, from Facebook games/apps to the recent email/chat/message consolidations.

And now it’s looking at the media industry. Just like its looked at the Facebook phone. Hell, its even threatened to wade into Google’s territory with search.

Which brings us to Google. When Google started leveraging its dominance earlier in the past decade to branch into everything. Just as Google was the behemoth of the previously-unheralded search, Facebook is of social. The possibilities are limitless, and Facebook is exploring.

Hulu continues to permeate society as the video and TV content medium of choice for the internet savvy. The last time we looked at them, they were gaining serious ground. So, just how “big” is Hulu?

According to comScore some 38 million people used Hulu this July. This surpasses Business Insiders estimate of 34 million subscribers for Time Warner Cable, the United States second largest cable company. To put this all in perspective Comcast, the US’s largest cable company, has about 62 million viewers. Viewership statistics for the cable companies were derived by multiplying the number of subscribers by 2.59, which is what the census bureau tells us is the average person per household.

Some numbers to consider.

This means that Hulu is effectively the second largest provider of television content for Americans. If only the internet could prove a reliable cash cow for producers Hulu could easily be the platform of the future; however, for now they will have to be content with second place.

While Youtube is practically synonymous with online video these days, it’s certainly not the only player in town, if you’ll pardon the pun. Hulu’s number of unique viewers skyrocketed 42 percent in the month of February, riding on the heels of its popular Super Bowl commercials. Hulu is now the fourth largest video site, behind Google (Youtube), Fox (Myspace), and Yahoo!.

Hulu’s growth is certainly impressive considering that most of Hulu’s offerings are all from network television, which typically don’t go viral like many of Youtube’s offerings. However as more cash-strapped consumers ditch their cable subscriptions and look to stream their favorite shows online instead, Hulu’s growth could easily continue.

Overall, 75 percent of people who signed online in February viewed at least one video during the month. While Hulu served only 2.5 percent of those videos, a full quarter of video watchers saw at least one video at Hulu (which for those who are still following the math is almost a fifth of the Internet populace).

Google maintained its lead at the largest video provider, showing over 5 million videos to 100 million unique visitors, almost 41 percent of all videos shown.

And as a final note, if productivity is what we need to get us out of this economic rut, these statistics don’t bode very well for us. Over 13 million videos were viewed in February, averaging out to about five hours per user. So much for actually getting work done at the office.

On Tuesday, Karin Gilford, chief of Comcast’s online division, told PCWorld.com about the latest move by the cable giant. “The Comcast On Demand online video service will allow Comcast subscribers to sign in with a username and password, then access any standard or premium cable content that their cable subscription entitles them to watch.”

Fancast has always provided VOD, over 3,000 film and TV titles are currently available, with pricing starting from $3.99 for 24-hour film rentals, $9.99 for film purchases, and $1.99 for TV shows.The difference being, with it’s recent push in both the hardware and now content, it’s stands a chance against the likes of Hulu.com and Veoh.com, among other video sites, when it begins streaming it for free of charge. Available only to those whom already have an cable subscription with them.

While no specifics were mentioned (When will I be able to watch any show from any cable network at any time?), and the issue of recent bandwidth usage caps wasn’t addressed, the most we can be sure of is Comcast’s cautious steps into the wild west of the digital realm. With a complex system of how to pay for all the content it’s going to provide, subscribers to Comcast should look forward to milking this deal before it will surely become a paid-for-service entirely. Who needs Blockbuster or Netflix when you got this?