(Column) - After what seemed like forever, Hulu is finally showing signs of life with Private Beta invites going out soon to selected users. The company recently briefed reporters on the upcoming service, and the initial thoughts are amazingly positive. According to online reports, the interface is clean, advertising is relatively unobtrusive and the selection of premium content shows is on the high end. And it's expected to go up in the near future with Hulu signing more content deals. While it's going to take another few months for the general public to get access to the site, Hulu, in its entirety, is the YouTube Killer. Seriously.

Sure, YouTube is fun, but to an extent. It's user-generated content, but crap. It's a collection of mainstream, everyday videos, but who cares? Honestly, YouTube is entertaining and a great time waste to an extent, but you just can't compare it to the professionally produced premium content. Even the pirated clips that are on there are laughable in quality. Actually, scratch that. They are downright depressing. With Google's new anti-piracy tool, you can expect even the half-decent premium quality videos to disappear in the near future. What are you left with? More loser-generated content with meaningless story lines, crude comments and inane, everyday stuff. My life is entertaining enough so as not to warrant me watching someone else's.

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That brings me to my main point. With Hulu and its library of premium content shows, movies and clips, just the hype is enough to send Hulu off the charts. Perhaps the best part is - Hulu is the answer to all concerns. Consumers want free content? Check. Producers need to generate revenue? Check. Consumers + Producers = Existing in Harmony? Check, Check and CHECK. It's the perfect combination of bottom line and consumer consumption all bundled together for a mutually fruitful deal. It doesn't get any better than that, folks.

The interface (from publicly available screen shots) is definitely better than YouTube, and since the platform is so closely monitored without unnecessary tools, it just works. Hulu is also planning to distribute its content to AOL, Yahoo and other media portals for mass consumption with ads, of course, and I say, bring it on. NBC and News Corp.'s partnership is the perfect answer to what consumers and marketers alike have been asking for a long, long time. And I think the ridiculous $100MM in investment might just justify the end result.

Of course, I'm holding off on completely making up my mind about the service until it officially launches, but Google's starting to look like a chump for paying $1.65B for YouTube, which may soon become obsolete. Hulu nails it, at least theoretically, and it's the YouTube Killer. Be scared, YouTube, be very scared.

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