Chad Hurley stirred a lot of waves in the OgivlyOne Digital Media Summit last week. His statement about YouTube “having something for mobile devices” in 2007 was way overblown, including the expected coverage by Techrunch, MobileCrunch, Red Herring and CNET. 

While Marshal Kirpatrick as well as other writers claim it’s hard to believe YouTube and Google will miss out on 2007, I differ. Well, sort of. I do believe YouTube will “have something for mobile devices in 2007″, but I do not believe they will have something MEANINGFUL for mobile devices within that time frame.

Why? Two main reasons.

Google and YouTube have a merger to complete. With all due respect to Chad Hurley, he has other issues to deal with now. The DMCA riddle is not nearly solved yet, Chad should spend a lot of time prepping for the inevitable journey in the legal labyrinth. Then there is  a hell of complicated business environment to figure out and execute on. After all, now there is a price tag to justify, not just romance. So who will really finance user generated content? How? What is the real CPM? Will the users really like it? what will competitors do? All these are strategic and real, near term, challenges Google and YouTube face before they can really address the mobile market. The of course there are corporate politics, huge pressure to grow and expand, press, analysts….and these will take more than 14 months.

Then there is the mobile market. YouTube can easily create a mobile interface. Granted. They can also write a mobile client or two and get additional coverage by the blogosphere. Big deal. But in order to establish real mobile presence they need to work through operators. They need to forge business deals with competing operators, align with interests of the mobile food chain, pick strategic partners, integrate their products and test them on a variety of devices, forge a few media and billing partnerships and deliver a usable product users really like.

Network operators have not figured out what to do with Google and YouTube just yet. They need to feel comfortable and protect their core value and they move rather slowly. They also happen to own the keys to mass market distribution, at least as far 2007 is concerned. And if Chad Hurley thinks he can deliver a mobile product in 14 months he should think again. He won’t.

Now I do think YouTube will go mobile, just like I know Google will continue down that path. I just think it will take much longer time and will require a smarter, more complicated strategy. What I am confident of, however, is that it presents a good opportunity for middle-ware players and service providers who can bring the two worlds, internet and mobile, together.