When I talk to people about Web video, I usually end up chatting with people who are in one of two camps. Either they’re tech-centric early adopters, who believe that networks are dinosaurs and that the masses are ready to ditch their cable TV subscriptions for Hulu and the like; or they’re old media realpolitik-sters, who think most people want nothing more than to come home, plop down on the couch and hit the remote. And that anything else is just marginal hype.

The truth has to be somewhere in between, right?

Yep, says Bernstein Research analyst Jeffrey Lindsay, who has rolled out a new study on the demographics of online video watchers, based on a survey his shop conducted in March. Lindsay concludes his study by announcing that Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp. (NWS) entertainment unit Fox, GE (GE) unit NBC Universal and soon, Disney (DIS) unit ABC, is more of a threat to Big Media (or at least to the cable guys) than Google (GOOG)) online video monster YouTube.

Not sure about that, but I do appreciate some of the data that Lindsay has unearthed, some of which reaffirms my own biases, and some of which challenges them.

For instance: More than half of the country is already watching television or movies via a Web connection, and nearly half of those people are oldsters over 40 (click to enlarge).

But very few online video watchers are pirating the stuff they watch. I would have thought, based on the ascent of sites like Megavideo, that piracy was much more prevalent:

Here’s the one I found most interesting–a third of online video watchers say they could see themselves ditching TV altogether in favor of the Web. That’s a third of all Web video watchers, mind you, so that’s maybe 15 percent of the population. But if that number is even close to accurate, that is indeed a real problem for the cable industry and the rest of the media ecosystem that depends on it.

The counter to that last point: Given the choice, people still prefer to watch TV on TV, and they view Web video as a separate option that’s less good.

BoomTown was there Thursday when Facebook announced a new look for profiles and homepages that incorporates a “timeline” or “stream” of realtime updates. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “This creates a continuous stream of information that delivers a deeper understanding for everyone participating in it.” It’s also reminiscent of some other sites, not that it’ll matter much in the long run. Speaking of Twitter, BoomTown got impatient waiting around for its revenue strategy to materialize and went ahead and started a “Twitter Business Plan Count-Up.” The Chia-Twit has potential, but the winning financial strategy so far, by a mile, is the “Snuggie-Tweet.” BoomTown describes it best.

MediaMemo was all (well, almost all) about old media vs. new media. This week. Hulu, which lets you watch Fox and NBC shows on your computer, has been playing tug-of-war with Boxee, which lets you watch Web video on your TV. Hulu and its TV programmer owners don’t really want you to have that option–the resulting standoff could be long and interesting. MediaMemo also reported on MegaVideo, the Chinese site that makes it easy to watch pirated TV shows and movies online, noting that Hollywood’s Napster moment has probably just arrived. Universal Music Group–which has already had its share of Napster moments–is discussing a music site with YouTube. According to MediaMemo, it would be the most likely way to benefit both YouTube and UMG–not to mention music fans.

Digital Daily must be getting tired of that same old economic refrain. Among the highlights of this week’s crappy news: the jobless rate in Silicon Valley is at 9.3 percent and getting higher. At least Google (GOOG) may be getting some big love soon–Vivek Kundra, President Obama’s chief information officer, famously switched 38,000 workers from Microsoft Office to Google’s Web-based office suite as chief technology officer for the District of Columbia. No word yet on office software for the new White House, but here’s hoping for a more secure Google Docs. DD also noted the lack of a release date for Palm’s (PALM) new Pre from Sprint (S). Apparently it’ll be a while longer before anyone finds out if the Pre really is an iPhone-killer.

On the Personal Technology front, Walt Mossberg gave Apple’s (AAPL) new Safari browser a mixed review, and offered his first impressions of Kindle software on the iPhone. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt answered questions about reading periodicals on Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle 2, keeping a monitor from going to sleep in the middle of a movie, and the benefits of a netbook for traveling. And in the Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret took an early look at a new Oodle-powered Facebook Marketplace, and reported on its pros and cons.

Spring forward. More next week.

That’s because Boxee has rolled out a software upgrade that lets users grab most any video that’s syndicated via RSS. So as long as Hulu, a joint venture between GE’s (GE) NBC and News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, pushes out its content using that open feed, you’ll be able to get it onto Boxee. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones, which owns this Web site.)

A victory for technology in the battle against dated business models and walled gardens? Sort of. But not a resounding one.

The point of Boxee was to make getting video to your big screen easy and seamless, and this RSS end-run doesn’t do that. If Boxee is going to succeed as a mass-market play, it needs to be plug-and-play simple–otherwise, there are plenty of other clunky ways for users to get Web video on TV.

The good news, says Boxee CEO Avner Ronen in a blog post, is that big media are not a faceless monolith that hate their customers:

“While we don’t come from an entertainment or cable background, we are learning quickly. It is a complex business. our meetings with Hulu and their content providers reinforced that point. The fact that it’s becoming easy to consume Internet video on a TV brings into question many of the industry’s business models that developed before the Web. That’s part of the reason why Hulu asked to be removed from boxee. Our meetings over the past week weren’t able to change that. But the people in the industry ‘get it’. They are users. They read the blogs. They talk with users. They are trying to adjust to a new reality, but they need time.”

The bad news: The TV guys aren’t in a hurry. For them, Boxee is bit player in a much more important drama–high-stakes negotiations that pit TV and cable networks against cable operators.

Right now, for instance, NBC Universal is renegotiating its carriage agreements with Comcast (CMCSA), the country’s biggest cable operator, which will determine how much Comcast pays NBCU for the rights to its programming. (Answer: A lot).

I certainly don’t get the impression that Comcast is terrified of a wave of Boxee users dumping their cable subscriptions to watch TV via broadband. But they’re certainly happy to use Boxee’s existence as a bargaining chip with NBC, which may or may not be why Hulu ended up pulling its stuff off of Boxee.

Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Hulu/Boxee situation left unresolved until NBC finishes up its talks, which could take a while.

But if I were the TV guys, I wouldn’t wait too long: The longer they keep their stuff off of legal Web services, the more incentive they give Web surfers to try out illegal ones. Just ask the people who made pirate site MegaVideo.com the 10th most popular video site.

Thanks to all the readers who set me straight. It turns out there’s an easy answer for MegaVideo’s popularity: It’s a really good way to watch pirated movies and TV shows online.

The trick, it turns out, is not to go to MegaVideo itself to look for “The Dark Knight” or HBO’s new “Eastbound & Down” show. Instead you head to sites like movietvonline.com or sidereel.com, and they’ll direct you to one of MegaVideo’s streams. The stuff generally appears to be pretty good quality, and it’s much easier to access than a BitTorrent download–if you can use Hulu, you can use this stuff.

Apologies to anyone who finds this old hat. It’s obviously becoming more and more common for many of you. Again, take a look at this comScore (SCOR) growth chart. This is how you move from obscurity to the 10th-most popular video site in a year’s time (click graphic to enlarge):

Can’t Hollywood try to crack down on sites like MegaVideo and the sites that showcase their streams? After all, Google’s (GOOG) YouTube was once a piracy haven, and is much less so now. Same thing with DailyMotion, etc.

Sure. But the Chinese government has, um, a mixed record when it comes to IP protection. And in any event, we’re certainly going to see more of these coming down the pike, and it’s only going to be more commonplace.

All of which means that Hollywood, network TV and the cable companies have no choice if they want to keep viewers from turning to the pirates: Give them easy access to whatever they want, whenever they want it.

It’s the same scenario the music guys faced at the end of the 1990s, and they screwed it up. Look at them now.

Right now some of the players are talking a good game–“We think everything on television should become available to you on broadband for free,” Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes said yesterday at an investor conference. He doesn’t really mean free, by the way–he means free to cable and satellite TV subscribers.

The industry can hash out payment plans later. But first, those who make money creating and distributing video need to move very fast to get their stuff in front of viewers, wherever they want to see it. Because MegaVideo is already doing it.