There was a tectonic shift in the digital media landscape yesterday with Disney’s announcement that it would become part owner of Hulu and provide the content portal with full-length episodes of hit shows like “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” As with any deal of this size, there are winners and losers. Hulu is obviously a winner, as it now gains a new, two-year lease on life and can boast content from three of the four major broadcast networks. Hulu’s win, though, is a big loss for YouTube, which also has a deal with Disney, but only gets short-form clips.

Hulu’s victory celebration may be short-lived, however. Sure, it gets a ton of new premium content, but it also gets a new owner and as such now has three media companies to answer to. We’ve already seen the first two exert their influence on the service through restrictive release windows, the pulling of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” from the site, and the pressure on Hulu to remove itself from the Boxee media platform. Hulu doesn’t own its content, and without that content, it can’t exist. So in a sense, this deal means a lot, but changes little, as Hulu still isn’t in control of its own destiny.

Comcast is ramping up activity on its Fancast premium content portal. The cableco has been a busy beaver lately, going back to the networks and studios to get online rights to content so you can watch as much “Rescue Me” as you like…provided you can authenticate that you’re a cable subscriber, that is.

Karin Gilford, senior vice president of Fancast and online entertainment for Comcast Interactive Media, told us in a recent interview that her company sees online video as additive — not cannibalistic — to existing TV viewing. But if bandwidth-hogging online video is no threat to its existing business, why has Comcast imposed a 250 GB cap on broadband service? Gilford doesn’t see caps as an issue and feels the 250 GB cap is almost “impossible” to hit.

Comcast seems to be talking out of both sides of its mouth: We’ll build a great online video destination filled with more content than ever…just don’t use it too much. Check out NewTeeVee’s full video interview with Gilford in which she talks about online video “authentication” and how Fancast will evolve to become more social.

Hulu celebrates the one-year anniversary of its public launch today, and it’s getting social by adding Facebook and MySpace functionality. Many skeptics (*cough* Om *cough*) originally dismissed the joint venture between FOX and NBC as something that couldn’t work, but over the last year Hulu’s premium content service has turned one-time critics into champions, and it’s now the No. 2 video site behind YouTube.

Past might not be prologue for the content provider, however. The online video world is vastly different now than it was when Hulu launched. Hulu may be a victim of its own success, as the premium content era it helped usher in is adopted by the competition. With media companies and cable cos getting into long-form video online, we at NewTeeVee ask the question: Do we need Hulu anymore?

The buzz has been building for Boxee lately. Mainstream news outlets like The New York Times, BusinessWeek and NPR are getting hip to the little open-source media center that could quite possibly change the way you experience TV. Continue »

Next week at this time we’ll have a new President-elect. And though the outcome might get mired in a legal morass, one clear winner from the year-and-a-half campaign has been online video. Now, a new study from Compete and Cisco sheds a little more light on exactly how U.S. voters were using online video, how Republicans and Democrats went about finding video, and how online video affected voters’ engagement in the election. Read more over at NewTeeVee.

It’s a pickle. You just got laid off and now more than ever you need to get a new gig. The best place to meet prospective employers and network is in person at an industry conference (get them drunk!). But now there’s no company paying your way, and you’re pinching every penny. What you need is a discount.

Our NewTeeVee Live Conference is right around the corner, and it not only features a stellar lineup of speakers (the CEOs of Hulu, Netflix and Canoe Ventures, and the creator of CSI, to name a few), but also an excellent opportunity to press the flesh with the media companies that matter. They’ll all be attending.

If you’ve recently lost your job, we’ll give you a so-low-we-can’t-print-it-here discount on a ticket to NewTeeVee Live. All you have to do is email your laid-off story to “tickets at newteevee dot com” with the subject line “LAID OFF DISCOUNT” (bonus points if you attach your company’s downsizing memo!). We’ll send you a code that you can use when purchasing your ticket.

NewTeeVee Live is Thursday, Nov. 13, in San Francisco. Just because the economy is in the dumps doesn’t mean you have to be. We’ll see you there.