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Just to put the numbers into perspective, with its recent earnings from entering the online movie rental business, YouTube couldn't even afford one minimum-wage, full-time employee. But it's not a bad start, nonetheless, and the best news may be for the filmmakers themselves.

When YouTube announced the move two weeks ago, we mused over whether or not people would be willing to pay for content, as is always the question. For a relatively quick, quiet test campaign, we would venture that YouTube certainly outpaced Newsday, with its 35 online subscribers.

A year-end thank-you note from Hulu CEO Jason Kilar offered some statistics to show us just how much the nearly three-year-old service has grown.

Back in April, the service became one of the top three Internet video providers, alongside Google - which includes YouTube and Google Video - and Fox, according to comScore. Kilar includes a number of statistics in his note to show that the site has continued its climb in popularity during the rest of 2009.

Dailymotion, the Paris-based video sharing portal that is extremely popular in Europe, just launched its first set of iPhone applications. Dailymotion launched two apps: a free, ad-supported version (iTunes link), and a paid version for $5.99 (iTunes link) that does not feature any ads. The apps allow iPhone users to play videos from Dailymotion's catalog of roughly 12 million videos. Dailymotion users can also use the apps to upload videos directly to the service.

Google is clearly obsessed with the idea of speeding up the Web these days. After launching Google Public DNS earlier today, the company also just announced a new light-weight beta version of YouTube. "Feather" introduces ultra-light watch pages that load faster than the standard YouTube pages. According to YouTube engineer Chris Zacharias, new features like 1080p video have slowed down loading times significantly for users who don't have access to high broadband speeds.

TodayYouTube has announced its plan to support 1080p videos.

This means that those amazing, high-definition videos you uploaded last year will now finally be converted to their original resolutions and will finally look as good as they do on your desktop. The new resolution represents a significant improvement over the current 720p maximum resolution, which leaves all those glorious, pirated segments of old movies tragically blurred and pixelated.

Vook is a new company that's come up with a method for blending text and premium video to create an interesting mobile multimedia experience around popular literature.

It combines the (relatively) old skool readability of a Kindle with the engagement of a YouTube series, all wrapped in the delicious flavor of a usable, interactive UI for web users and iFanboys alike.

Finding specific online videos from TV networks and independent producers can often be a daunting challenge. Some TV shows are on Hulu, some can only be found as paid downloads on iTunes or Amazon and some are only available for streaming on the network's and producer's own sites.

Clicker wants to change this by making it easier to find shows from TV networks, music videos, and web videos from across the Internet. Clicker is currently in private beta and only available in the US. The company gave us 1000 invites for our readers. Read on to find out how you can get yours.

Almost every TV channel offers some programming on the Web these days. Epix, a new premium movie channel that will launch this weekend, goes a step further. If you are a Verizon FiOS subscriber, you will be able to watch the same movies that Epix shows on TV on the channel's Internet site. Epix is a joint venture between Viacom, MGM Studios and Lionsgate. If you are not a FiOS subscriber, you can still take a peek at the service. You can request a three-day pass here or read on for instructions on how to claim a 30-day pass.

Vimeo, one of our favorite online video services, just announced a number of interesting updates. In the near future, Vimeo plans to give its users the ability to use an Adobe AIR desktop tool to upload videos to the service. These videos will also play in a larger video player. In addition, Vimeo plans to introduce a more advanced stats package for users with paid accounts.