Hulu is stepping up its global initiatives to compete for audience and advertising dollars overseas.

On Monday, the video-streaming site added Johannes Larcher to its executive ranks as senior vice president of international. Mr. Larcher must work with each content provider to negotiate international rights for each video. Hulu has more than 130 content providers and 1,100 TV programs and movies, and its library continues to grow.

Certain snippets of content are already available outside the U.S. Tuesday evening’s news conference with President Barack Obama, for example, will be streamed internationally.

Hulu is a partnership between General Electric’s (GE) NBC Universal and News Corp. (NWS), owner of Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal.

In international activities, Hulu trails behind Joost, an independent start-up competing in the premium online content space. Joost has a localized site for the U.K. and is viewable around the world, though content availability varies from country to country.

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There’s a spirited debate on the Street this morning about what to make of the Diploma-Gate scandal that’s broken out at Concur Technologies (CNQR), which provides software used to track employee travel expenses. (We actually use their software here at Dow Jones, and I find it incredibly irritating and nonintuitive. But I digress.)

As I noted on Friday, Concur has confirmed that CEO S. Steven Singh does not actually have a degree from the University of Michigan, contrary to what the company had stated in SEC filings from 1998 until January 2007. Subsequent filings no longer claim that Singh graduated from Michigan, but the issue came to light publicly last week, when it was uncovered by convicted ZZZZ Best fraudster Barry Minkow, who now spends at least part of his time seeking to uncover–and profit from–corporate misdeeds as part of something called the Fraud Discovery Institute. While Concur in a statement Friday acknowledged the issue, the company also said it had no plans to take any disciplinary action against Singh.

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Is more always better?

Hulu has expanded its content library considerably since its launch a year ago. The Internet video site has grown from 50 content partners to more than 130 and has nearly 40,000 pieces of video.

Now, in addition to the full-length TV shows that made the site popular, it has an expansive, somewhat chaotic library. The site contains everything from two-hour feature films such as Universal’s “Liar, Liar,” starring Jim Carrey, to short instructional Web videos such as “How to Make Stuffed Crust Pizza.”

Andy Forssell, Hulu’s senior vice president of content and distribution, says the goal is to provide users and advertisers with more options. Hulu is a joint venture of General Electric’s (GE) NBC Universal and News Corp., (NWS) which owns Wall Street Journal (and AllThingsD.com) publisher Dow Jones.

Among the newest content partners is Condé Nast Publications Inc., the people behind magazines like Vogue and Wired. Videos from the company’s online destinations, such as Epicurious.com, a site for food aficionados, are now appearing on Hulu. They’ve added content from four sites: Epicurious, Wired.com, Style.com and Men.Style.com.

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How badly does the newspaper industry need new ideas? Here’s the story I often tell when that question comes up.

The year was 2005, and I had recently joined the venerable Dow Jones from Yahoo (YHOO), where I had led the team that helped build the financial portal. My job at Dow Jones was head of all consumer online sites, including WSJ.com, Barrons.com and Marketwatch.com. One day I was invited to a meeting to brainstorm about, of all things, the width of the Wall Street Journal. After I made a suggestion that was somewhere between novel and off the wall, the then-publisher leaned on the table, looked at me and said: “How old are you, young man?” The suggestion was clear: If you’re under 40, you can’t possibly understand the newspaper business. I still wish my response, though impolitic, had been: “How old is your thinking?”

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News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox Interactive Media digital division is laying off about five percent of its workforce, or about 100 people, amid continued cost-cutting efforts, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The cuts, which started in the last month, are happening gradually unit by unit, the person said. The layoffs include all groups, from social-networking site MySpace to photo-sharing site Photobucket to mobile. (News Corp. owns Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal and the owner of AllThingsD.com.)

“I can confirm that several of the groups within FIM are eliminating some jobs and repurposing others,” a FIM spokesman said in a statement. “This is part of a larger effort we’re making to put FIM in the best possible position to succeed now and, more importantly, to emerge even stronger once the markets recover. It’s important to note that we continue to hire in many areas.”

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SanDisk (SNDK) shares are on the rise on rumors that Toshiba might be planning a bid for the company, according to Dow Jones Newswires. The two companies have a joint venture to manufacture NAND flash memories, and Toshiba has been often rumored to be a logical partner for the flash memory chipmaker.

In October, Samsung withdrew a $26-a-share bid for SanDisk; there was speculation before Samsung pulled its offer that Toshiba might serve as a white knight for SanDisk.

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