“Hey, do you want to grab a drink after class?”

“No thanks man, I got Bud.TV at home.”

No, your glasses are not smudged, your contact did not slip off the center of your eye and this is not a joke. Only a week ago, millions were packed into sports bars and living rooms all perched around a television watching the Super Bowl, and more importantly, the ads. But recently Anheuser-Busch is making headlines all over with its forty million dollar gamble, www.bud.tv, or as New York Times Magazine dubbed it, “Brew Tube.”

Though only a mere week into its life on the Internet, Bud.TV, Anheuser-Busch’s new online entertainment network has been making waves in the news since this past fall, Tony Ponturo, Anheuser-Busch’s Vice President of Global Media and Sports Marketing, was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying, “Can we be in six months what YouTube is?

“Bud.TV is unknown today, but with our marketing and awareness programs, that reach is not an unreasonable objective for the first 90 days.”

Though the network is free, and promises a variety of programming that is updated often, it is still under the scrupulous eye of many advocacy groups that are demanding stricter control on who is able to view the material.

The network’s answer to these questions is a very easily tricked member set-up page, which merely asks for your date of birth along with a sign-in name and password.

Once logged in, members are greeted with a welcoming video, which gives a brief information and navigational tutorial, along with a greeting underneath, reading “Welcome to Bud.TV. Take a look around, sample our line up of shows and check back regularly because this thing is going to change – often.”

Will the “Brew Tube” overtake YouTube as the dominant online entertainment network? Its future is uncertain, but it is definitely worth some leisurely adventuring by all web surfers. Some are sceptical, however.

“I don’t know, I think it is kind of stupid because I don’t like to watch commercials in the first place on television, so why would I go to the Web site and wait for them to download,” said Deb Mueggenberg, ISU alumna.