Well… amid the requisite fanfare and a public beta longer than the gestation period of a Bactrian camel, Hulu has finally launched (http://www.hulu.com).   As background, Hulu is a JV of NBC-Universal and News Corp (Fox) and is designed to be their in-house, legal retort to YouTube and other streaming media sites.  We'll see if it takes off or not.
Traditional advertisers (aka those who need to curry favor with the parent companies) have expressed glowing desires to spend their ad money on Hulu.  But that could change in a nano second if Hulu doesn't deliver the viewers.  And based on what I've read, Hulu provides advertisers with little more than a basic subscriber profile.  They certainly don't offer some of the more cutting edge personalization and targeting capabilities that companies such as ScanScout, NebuAd and others offer.  Then again, those guys don't have $100M in the bank and an inside connection to major content creators.  So the times they get more interesting.

But Hulu's strong suit isn't their access to content – you can get everything they have from several other sites – but instead, is their quality and functionality.  Their videos are cataloged numerous ways to make it easy to find the exact content you want – plus similar content you might enjoy.  A lifestyle angle.  They also let you view the content in numerous formats and give you control over aspects such as lighting and resolution.  They've also made it extremely user friendly so it's easy to share clips with friends and embed them into web sites.

Their emphasis on wanting consumers to have a quality viewing experience should lend itself to the creation of a strong relationship with communications service providers who can help them ensure that the user's experience is enjoyable.  That should translate into a stronger position with advertisers.  But some fundamental questions remain around what consumers really want when it comes to online video.

It appears that if people want to watch a full-length piece of video content (a 30 min show, movie, etc.), they are gravitating towards downloading it from iTunes or some other source for viewing at a later time.  If they are watching something streaming in real-time, they want short things (3-5 minutes, probably around a niche topic) sometimes called video snacking.  

So where does this leave a telecom SP (or cable SP)?  In a download scenario, they're a pipe plain and simple.  If it's a video snacking type situation, willcommunications service providers be able to fully leverage their core value-adds such as QoS, location, presence and more or are consumers OK with less than perfect quality because they simply want to take a peek at something quirky or out of the norm.  And where does this leave IPTV or 'traditional' cable & satellite services?

Thoughts, comments, ideas and objections are all welcome.