At next week’s NewTeeVee Live conference, we’re looking at an industry that has rapidly matured. But it is still getting used to its new role, recovering from growing pains, and preparing for the future.

Four years ago, it was clear as a day to me that, much like rest of the media industry, the world of video was going to atomized, thanks to digitization. As a broadband prognosticator, it was even more evident that video would become one of the killer apps of broadband.

So we created NewTeeVee to track the changes in the video landscape. In the past several years, we’ve seen YouTube grow from a place where people posted personal videos to a video powerhouse with nearly $1 billion in (estimated) revenues. Hulu, which wasn’t even around back then, has become the place to watch TV shows online.

Video on the web has come a long way since we founded NewTeeVee. It’s no longer just about watching some low-quality, short clips in a small, slow-to-load video player. Today, more and more viewers are turning to a stable of brand-new gadgets to watch video not just on their laptops, but on their TVs and other devices.

We now have companies like Netflix and Amazon delivering movies and TV shows in HD directly to TV sets and to mobile phones and tablets so you can watch your favorite content wherever you are. I watched the recently concluded Major League Baseball season entirely online — on my laptop, my iPad and on the new Mac Mini connected to my big screen television, which is equipped with Boxee software. In fact, these connected devices are becoming all the rage these days. The newly introduced AppleTV is flying off the shelves, even to the surprise of Apple itself.

In 2007, we hosted our first NewTeeVee Live conference. We are going to host the fourth edition of this industry event a week from today and we hope to learn about the future of video distribution, thanks to conversations with video industry leaders. In the four years that have passed, we’ve seen massive changes in how video is made, distributed and viewed by consumers. But there’s still a lot more change to come.

At NewTeeVee Live next week, our keynote speaker, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, will be with us to discuss the challenges and the opportunities that confront his company and others that seek to provide premium, long-form content online. I’ll be talking to him about new business models that are emerging — like Hulu’s move to offer a subscription service — and the challenges the company faces in making content available on a wide variety of devices.

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch will discuss how Flash will remain relevant in a world where Apple’s iPad and HTML5 are quickly gaining adoption. And YouTube’s Hunter Walk will talk to us about what’s next for the No. 1 video site on the web. (Check the schedule for details of keynotes and panels.)

Devices are becoming increasingly important, as viewers are now able to access their favorite online video services in the living room. Google TV product lead Rishi Chandra and Samsung director of content Olivier Manuel will show attendees how consumer electronics companies are working to bridge the divide between online video and the TV.

Social media and multi-platform distribution are also key forces that content producers must be aware of. As a result, Fox Broadcasting’s Hardie Tankersley and Ensemble Pictures’ Oren Jacobs will discuss how social media is becoming increasingly important in capturing viewers interest and attention — whether you’re pitching a hit TV show like Glee or you’re building an audience for independent film distribution. And Bryan Perez, general manager for NBA Digital, will talk about how a three-screen strategy has been key to the basketball league. (Here is a full list of speakers.)

All these speakers and more will be present to push forward the conversation about the next wave of video innovation, and how the next generation of video technologies will be disruptive to the business models of TV and movie distribution already in place. How the industry will shake out is unclear, but our speakers will help shed some light on how this industry is rapidly evolving.

The amazing part of this year’s event is that we have a brand new team at the helm of NewTeeVee — Ryan Lawler, Janko Roettgers and Liz Shannon Miller — and they’re bringing a unique new energy to our conference. They will be shepherding most of the conversations, but you’ll see me pop up often enough.

We hope to see you there. And if you haven’t reserved your spot, I would urge you to do so. Tickets are going fast.