What is it? A TV (and movie) portal that looks more or less like every other TV (and movie) portal on the Web: Hulu, TV.com, Sling.com, Fancast, etc.

The only reason for AT&T (T) to launch its own portal now would be as a placeholder until it launches its own “TV Everywhere” play, where subscribers to its  “U-Verse” TV service would get Web access to cable shows. That’s the same strategy that Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), Verizon (VZ) and everyone else in the pay TV business is trying.

But while AT&T will likely be doing the same, this site isn’t for that. At least, not according to the note AT&T sent to NewTeeVee, which makes it sound like the company is creating…another free Web TV portal:

We have started a soft launch of a new site called AT&T Entertainment. This site will feature free online content available to any consumer. We’re finalizing a few final elements, and we’ll share more details on our official launch soon.

Allrighty, then. As AT&T says, it’s a soft launch, so maybe when it’s ready for primetime, things will make more sense. But for now it’s a head-scratcher.

One thing that distinguishes AT&T’s site from, say, Hulu: Hulu lets you embed clips from the site on your blog, while AT&T’s site, which relies on Hulu for much of its content, doesn’t. So here’s an awesome, upsetting clip you can see on AT&T’s site, but can only embed by heading to Hulu. Makes sense, right?

In the meantime, Hulu wants us to know that:

• It’s now the biggest video site that isn’t Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, at least according to one count. Nielsen’s VideoCensus pegs the site’s February traffic at 309 million video views, which puts it ahead of News Corp.’s MySpace and Yahoo (YHOO). But as AdAge’s Michael Learmonth notes, it’s still not on the same playing field as YouTube, which generated 5.2 billion views during the same period.
• It’s not just a video site, it’s a social network. Or at least, it now has some social-network-like features, like the ability to share favorite clips with your pals. TV.com, Sling.com, Joost, et al, do something similar. The good news is that Hulu lets you import connections from Facebook, MySpace, Google, etc. The bad news is that this won’t appease broadcast and cable TV executives who worry that Hulu takes eyeballs away from their offerings, despite what someone told The Wall Street Journal today.
• Hulu users really, really like their “Saturday Night Live.” The show’s clips accounted for nine of the ten most emailed clips in the last year and eight of the ten most viewed videos that were embedded in other sites. Like this one.

I’ll confess up front that I don’t know, and the two companies themselves aren’t being helpful in explaining the kerfuffle. But here’s the best guess from online video folks who know both companies: Hulu isn’t pumped up about supplying its content to a competitor–especially since CBS isn’t supplying its content to Hulu.

For what it’s worth, Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and GE’s (GE) NBC, offers up this statement: “Hulu has contractual rights with regards to our relationship with TV.com and we are exercising those rights. Out of respect for their confidentiality, we will not disclose our discussions.” CBS offers up a more concise “no comment.” (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones, which owns this Web site.)

[UPDATE: CBS weighs in with a saber rattling statement on Thursday afternoon: “CBS Interactive is well within its rights to stream Hulu video content on TV.com under its agreement with Hulu. We are evaluating our next steps at this time.” ]

The background: CNET, which CBS (CBS) purchased last summer, has owned the TV.com domain for several years. This year, CBS relaunched the site as a Hulu-like video portal. Included in the launch was video from Hulu itself, which syndicates its stuff to dozens of sites, including MySpace, Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL, and Sling.com.

The wrinkle: Hulu’s distribution deal was inked with CNET when the company wasn’t owned by CBS. And CBS doesn’t provide its video to Hulu. You can connect the dots here, and that’s what several folks I’ve talked to today are doing. If either one of the companies decides to become more expansive, I’ll update when appropriate.

In the meantime, here’s a clip of “NCIS,” a CBS show you can’t get on Hulu:

And a clip from last weekend’s “Saturday Night Live,” an NBC show you can no longer see on TV.com:

But until then, if you want to see your favorite stuff on the Web (legally), you’ll need a well-annotated map: You can see ABC shows like “Lost” on Veoh, but not on Joost. Joost can show you stuff like CBS’s “CSI,” but not NBC’s “Heroes”–you’ll need to go to NBC.com or Hulu for that. Etc.

The newest set of directions: You’ll soon be able to see Viacom shows like Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob Square Pants” and MTV’s “The Hills” on Sling.com, giving the video site something you can’t get on Hulu or Google’s (GOOG) YouTube–but can get on Joost and DailyMotion.

Except that Hulu already shows full episodes of two of Viacom’s premiere shows–”The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”–via a one-off deal with Viacom (VIA). And… Sling redistributes all of Hulu’s content except for those two shows. [UPDATE: Sling will be getting both of those shows under terms of the new Viacom deal, I'm told.]

Confused? Of course you are. Because there really isn’t any rhyme or reason to this.

So while the networks and the video sites spend time on business development deals, it’s hard to begrudge those who throw up their hands and just go find what they want when they want at various torrent sites like The Pirate Bay.

In the meantime, here’s a (legal) clip from last night’s Daily Show, via Hulu.

Brothers Blake and Jason Krikorian, CEO and SVP-business development, are out, effective immediately. Jason Hirschhorn, who runs the company’s Sling Media Entertainment unit, plans on staying through the end of February; Ben White, chief creative officer at the entertainment group, will stay on through Feb. 1.

Some background from paidContent’s Staci Kramer, who had the story first:

Also leaving: Greg Wilkes, VP-sales. I’ve been told COO John Gilmore will take the reins for now but that may not be official. While no one is talking about any differences, there certainly is a big cultural gap between the tech-creative side and the traditional cable team at EchoStar.”

To tease that out: The Sling team can rightly point to a string of successes–the company racked up a number of awards at both the Consumer Electronics Show and MacWorld last week–but if things were humming smoothly at Echostar, you’d think the company would find a way to make them stick around.

The Slingbox is a potentially disruptive technology, but it’s still nascent, and Sling.com just launched late last year and will need a motivated team to help it gain traction in a crowded field. All those involved say they’ll be taking time off; everyone who knows the team involved finds that hard to believe.