This week, TV Week’s New Media Minute with Daisy Whitney takes an exclusive look at Hulu’s demographics, comparing numbers from Hitwise and Nielsen to see who’s tuning into Hulu. (Hint: both my parents watch it.)

She also takes a quick look at Revision3’s Internet Superstar, a podcast I’ve been grabbing through the Zune Marketplace for the past few weeks.

Hollywood producer Peter Safran has signed a deal with Microsoft to create original content for the Xbox 360 reports the New York Times. Content will initially be short-form scripted programming, genres like comedy and horror that will appeal to Xbox Live’s 10 million strong audience.

Microsoft’s Scott Nocas termed the deal “the first of many.” Content will debut exclusively on 360, will be syndiacted across other Microsoft web properties thereafter, and will most likely be ad-supported, at least initially.

The deal will bring some new high-production value content to the Xbox live marketplace without Microsoft’s needing to pay the licensing fees required for some of their other premium content. The trick will be promoting it and building an audience from the ground up.

If you haven’t yet seen You Suck at Photoshop, go check out. Kent Nichols points to it as an example of a web series done right, and it’s hysterical. It’s part of that new genre of programming which develops characters and plot through a unique format which would only work online.

Above: You Suck At Photoshop #2

Speculation about the secret identity of the Donnie Hoyle, the Photoshop guru we never see but come to know well, is the subject of speculation (the odds on favorite is Dane Cook, referred to in photos in the bridge variously as D-bag and douche.)

And while we never actually see anything outside Donnie’s computer screen the show gets better as it goes along by moving the plot forward through drama in the form of awkward interruptions from Donnie’s wife and VOIP calls from his World of Warcraft buddies, his last remaining friends who have by Episode 9, had it with him as well.

Above: You Suck at Photoshop #9

My Damn channel has some good content but as Nichols points out, none of it ever really took off like this. “It’s the only show that is of the net really. It embraces several brands that early video adopters also like (Photoshop, WoW, Skype), and above all else it’s funny.” Check out the full series here.

According to FYI’s blog this morning, the company has raised $1 million in capital and will be seeking to raise a Series A round in the near future.

For Your Imagination, a New York City based online media company and executive producers of acclaimed web series DadLabs and Break a Leg, has received an additional $1 million in seed capital from ConsensusOne Ventures, LLC and will partner with the firm to raise a Series A round of capital.

CEO Paul Kontonis tells OVW that, “The funding will be allocated to cover our operating expenses for the rest of this year. We anticipate that our gross revenues will continue to grow, we are already at 60% of 2007’s gross revenues, and will provide enough capital to expand into new video content networks that will be revenue generators as well. Given the state of the financial markets we are focusing on growing our business upon a very stable financial base and to further develop our revenue generating channels.”

Skipping the weekend and jumping right to Monday, don’t miss the IAB’s Marketplace event series, this time focusing on Ad Networks and Exchanges.

Ad networks and exchanges are changing the world of online advertising. How much do you know about them and how do they affect you?

At this one-day education packed event, you will:

* Learn how to protect your brand and clients as you gain an understanding of where and in what context your ads appear
* Gain an objective overview of ad networks and exchanges from top industry analysts from ThinkEquity and receive a copy of their exclusive industry report featuring an in-depth analysis of the network and exchange landscape
* Understand key strategic considerations each marketer, agency and publisher must weigh when incorporating networks and exchanges into a media plan
* Learn both the positives and negatives of networks and exchanges, as well as other factors to address when deciding if, and in what capacity, networks and exchanges make sense for you
* Meet the ad networks and exchanges who are changing the game and find out if and how they can benefit you

We’ll be there. If you are curious how ad networks and exchanges can help you, you should be there too.

Check out the keynote presentations on the Mediapost website. Everyone has finally returned from the event, encoded the videos, and posted them for your enjoyment.

The good folks at RealTVFilms.com were also on hand filming. Check out their interviews as well.

Despite being touted as a case study/model for cross platform promotion and trend analysis during an OMMA keynote presentation by CBS Interactive’s Chief Marketing Officer, Patrick Keane, CBS has canceled the show.

In addition to exploring a Netflix enabled set-top box with LG, Netflix is also exploring a partnership with Microsoft and their X-box to deliver streamed movies to user’s TVs.

Steve Swasey, a company spokesperson, said Netflix was interested in getting its movies to consumers’ TVs “in as many ways as possible.” And this certainly seems to be a much smarter way that getting users to buy an additional box to sit….where, exactly? With LCD and Plasma screens taking up less and less space in the livingroom, the once ubiquitous, ominous entertainment center is going the way of the dodo. Where are we to keep our cable boxes, tivo boxes, x-boxes, and sling boxes among all the other old-school media boxes like CD and DVD players, receivers, and - gasp - VCR?

Just in time for the season premiere of The Hills (not exactly our target demo, I realize) MTV has relaunched their full episode video player. The improved player offers adaptive bitrate streaming at up to 1.7 Mbps, and up to 3x the quality and resolution of the previous player.

The improvements are also clearly designed to improve sponsorship sales, full episodes are supported by a 30-second pre-roll and three 12-second mid-roll ads in addition to a companion banner below the player.

Yahoo! Video is now transcoding user video uploads to 700kbps, up from 300k previously. Now that so many households are capable of viewing high quality content, online video sites are being forced to differentiate themselves or simply stay competitive based on quality.

In recent months, YouTube has increased video quality. Vimeo and DailyMotion have begun to offer HD video. Bandwidth for a big company like Yahoo! is pretty cheap, but it’s difficult to imagine that any of these companies will see an increase in ad revenue proportional to the resulting increase in bandwidth cost any time soon.

Instead we’re still in a land grab situation, with companies vying to compete with YouTube to stay competitive in an online video ad market projected to reach $4.3 Billion in 2011.