They’ve finally made their videos widescreen.  This is more than likely in preparation to begin offering full-length movies like Hulu does.  But they spin it like this,

We’re expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them. This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience.

Don’t be fooled though.  They likely would have kept dragging their feet had reports like this and this not come up.  Hulu and other sites are making some ground and taking viewers away from YouTube.

YouTube isn’t being threatened by any means.  But the profitability of Hulu has shown them that their business model needs a little tweaking.  If you don’t provide a service people want, someone else will.  And they’ll likely do it better and put a damper on your business.