Advancements in technology have been augmenting various forms of business for centuries, but the entertainment industry has made some of the most significant use of technological advancement. From ancient plays to VHS tapes that are starting to seem ancient to the advent of the DVD with all its extras, bonus features, and advantages. While in the beginning finding new DVD releases and, especially, used DVDs for sale may have seemed a significant challenge compared to the numerous VHS tapes that were available, these disks have exploded to the point that the challenge is less in finding them than choosing the ideal method to acquire them.

Because as with anything that grows popular among people and sellers alike, there are numerous ways to go about finding DVDs both new and used. The wise among us know that whenever there is an overabundance of people selling a certain product, there is a frenzied competition to actually sell it. So much so, in fact, that I cannot help but think back to my elementary school economics classes and wonder if they finally elected to revise the law of supply and demand to make it a supply-demand-competition trifecta of marketing basics.

The education of the next generation of capitalists aside, this means that for those looking for cheap DVD movies – whether new DVD releases at an inexpensive price or used DVDs at less-than-wholesale costs – you’re going to have a significant search on your hands. Not that finding dvds cheap is going to be much of a challenge, but getting the best price to suit your purposes will require a bit of research, a modicum of math, and an analysis of what you want from your DVDs in the first place.

For example, if you have a favorite movie (or TV show, for that matter – in all my life, I think the only Christmas, birthday, or Fathers Day gift I ever got my dad that he actually used was the first season of House on DVD), you obviously want to have it to watch whenever you want. In this case, it might be ideal to check the web for some good prices on used DVDs for sale, or maybe even hit the rental store bargain bins to see if you fish your wish. Trading in used dvd movies that you’ve already seen has become popular, allowing you to exchange a set of older disks for a single new one.

But before you go buying any new DVD release you feel like watching the moment it comes out and then trading it in once you’ve finished with it, consider the alternative. Renting movies has never been easier. Not only are conventional video rentals well-stocked with all the latest movies and a wealth of classics to boot, but online DVD rentals allow you to order the DVD you want, watch it, and return it when it’s convenient. If you only want to see the movie once, a rental is likely to be significantly more efficient than buying and trading in.

Whatever the case, the advent of technology has made it easier than ever to stockpile our favorite shows and catch the latest new DVD releases. Cheap DVD movies are becoming ever more readily available, and the discriminating shopper can always get the best deal by considering when and for how long the movie will be desired. But that’s sufficient for now – dad and I have an episode of House to catch.

Contrary to what most people believed, promoting free smileys on the internet is tough job; in fact, it’s Herculean task. These cute animated free smileys may be popular, but from the point of view of an internet marketer, this popularity is in itself the core of the marketing challenge. Try searching the more popular search engine for “free smileys” and your eyes would pop on 635,000 search engine results. To scale the summit of a search engine’s top page, getting passed this huge number of competitors, one has to find a strategy that is “attention-friendly”; something that appeals not just to his niche, but impacts other online users, as well.

The movies!

Not to be outclassed or outlived by the media’s frenzy over the multi-million gross receipts of “Dark Knight”, a company that creates free smileys published online its free smileys versions of Batman and the Joker, making sure that its online users will have something to capture the movie with; a special free smiley icon that they can send in their emails or decorate the pages of their MySpace and Friendster accounts, or have something to remember by the brilliant performance of its fallen star, Heath Ledger, for months or even years after the movie has retired on DVD. Smart idea; what do you think?

And it seems it’s not enough, recently, another smiley came up online; an unlikely hero, but has definitely captured moviegoers’ hearts when it was first shown in theaters worldwide. Proof was its million-dollar receipts that catapulted it to one of Hollywood’s top grosser’s list in 2004: Hellboy.

“Hellboy” caught Hollywood by surprise; and if all surprises could mean millions of revenues, producers would not mind coming up with a sequel, and that’s exactly what happened.

Hellboy 2 (The Golden Army) debuted in theaters last week with $35.9 million in gross receipts. Owing to the public’s show of keen enthusiasm towards Hollywood’s latest movie release, smiley illustrators were quick to go back to the drawing board and came up with their latest edition of this Hollywood- inspired red-skinned hero from the abyss. That’s literally and figuratively-speaking “striking the iron while it’s hot” (as hell).

Why do free smileys take this marketing route?

James Schmidt explains that his company strives to empower personal communication via emails and social networking sites, such as MySpace and Friendster, by creating innovative and trendy free smileys that motivate, inspire and entertain. Everything redounds on giving online users what they want to share, and seemingly blockbuster movies and TV programs appeal to most of them.

In Good Company with Oprah

As more and more new trends of free smileys are recently added on the internet, there is this brand of free smiley that is cuter, more vibrant and a total runaway winner: Oprah Free Smiley. Search for it.

Oprah Smiley became an instant hit as who would not recognize her, or remember her couch? It was not too long ago when a very famous celebrity pranced on her show’s couch while professing his love to his new wife now, before Oprah’s stunned audience, and equally surprised TV viewers. That show of affection was one for a Danielle Steele’s paperback, while Oprah made it to free smileys’ featured hits.

Now the “battle” rages on: which one would be internet’s top grossing downloadable Hollywood free smiley or emoticon? Oprah, Hellboy or “Dark Knight”?

When dust settles back on the ground, one thing remains certain: hitching a marketing strategy on events, such as Hollywood’s blockbusters’ showdown, can be a big hit for website traffic. Don’t miss it!

I enjoy watching good TV as much as the next guy. I decided to write my thoughts into this article today about a series I just started watching this year called “Chuck” which airs on NBC Mondays at 7:00 central. It just wrapped it’s second season and I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings about this show, it’s characters and the writing as well as explain a little bit about why I hope it returns for a third season.

I actually began watching this show halfway through the second season. When I’m in my downstairs game room working or helping out with folding and hanging up laundry for my wife I like putting on streaming shows on my laptop so that I have some background noise going on. I think one of the best things networks have done recently is to stream their most popular shows online. My wife got hooked on Samantha Who? this way as she decided one day to watch it online after seeing that ABC had video of various shows on their website. Pretty soon she’d checked out quite a few shows and started watching them in the normal broadcast on TV. FOX, NBC and CBS all have streaming shows as well and has been a great way for our family to check out shows we otherwise never would have watched and now commit time to each week when they air on TV.

I watch NBC for a couple of shows that my wife, kids and I enjoy such as Life, Southland, Knight Rider and the Office and had seen spots air for Chuck. I remember the commercial showing different actors from the show in clips repeating the name “Chuck” which definitely made me remember the name of the show. At first glance in the TV spots it looked like a cool spy show with action, some romance and comedic elements to it. I remember thinking that I wanted to catch an episode to see what it was about but just never quite found the time to do it. I finally caught an episode on NBC’s website however a few months back and became hooked. NBC had all of season 2 online at this point so it was easy to get caught up with what was happening so that when it came on TV I could follow what was happening in the story arc. To someone like me who has never watched the series here is what I would tell you.

The series centers around the character Chuck Bartowski played by actor Zachary Levi. Chuck is in his mid 20′s and we follow him in three different settings in each episode. His life at home, his job at the Buy More (a big box electronics store) and the spy world that he suddenly finds himself thrust into unwillingly. In the pilot episode we find his life to be pretty normal and a bit geeky as he and his best friend Morgan played by actor Joshua Gomez do their best to entertain themselves with video games and hanging out at work. We find out Chuck lives at home with his sister Ellie played by actress Sarah Lancaster and her boyfriend Devon “Captain Awesome” Woodcomb played by actor Ryan McPartlin who for the most part are his family at home as their dad and mom left both of them years ago. Life seems pretty normal for Chuck until an old college buddy by the name of Bryce Larkin played by Matthew Bomer sends Chuck a special program via email from an experimental construct called the Intersect computer just as he destroys it. It contains all of the governments secrets in the form of encoded images and information and are downloaded accidentally into Chuck’s head upon opening Bryce’s email. Soon Chuck is being hunted down by the government’s best agents who are looking for the stolen data. The CIA sends agent Sarah Walker played by Yvonne Strahovski and the NSA sends agent John Casey played by Adam Baldwin out to find out what had happened to the Intersect that was stolen each believing that the other was responsible.

Chuck episodes feature several different elements that drive the plot and the story in such a way that you can watch episodes independently from each other. The three aspects of Chucks life (home, work and spy world) often merge together at the worst possible times making for some funny and uncomfortable situations that Chuck has to get himself and others out of often with the help of his agents and friends. The primary dynamic is Chuck’s friendship with his friend Morgan who doesn’t know about the spy part of his life and his association with government agents Walker and Casey who are always close and are undercover in Chuck’s life and job. There is also a romantic tension with Chuck and Agent Sarah Walker who have to “cover date” as part of Walker’s assignment which is complicated for both characters. Season long story arcs are threaded into each episode which focus on different major plot threads that continue to drive the story forward through the season.

Sometimes certain shows can be cheesy or a bit too over the top in the writing and direction that a show is going. New series also have a tendency to stray too far from what made them good in the first place. I think Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz have done a great job in 2 seasons with balancing out and moving forward the plot and storylines in this series and have kept it fresh and entertaining as well as grounded in that the series is still character driven rather than having to rely on special effects and other elements to keep you watching. You care about these characters and want to see what happens to them. Does Chuck ever get the girl? Will his life ever return to normal? Will he ever get the Intersect out of his head? Will his family find out the truth? The list goes on and on.

I’ve been able to get caught up on the whole series through NBC as well as catching the back half of season two on TV and in attempting to keep this article as spoiler free as possible I will just say that the season two finale tied up some pretty big loose ends but unraveled many more new ones. So if you haven’t started watching this series because it’s already wrapped season two, there’s plenty of time to get caught up. Don’t feel like too many episodes have aired as I was able to get caught up within a couple of weeks here and there quite eaily. I felt a little guilty for not catching this series in the first season. NBC has me hooked now though. Websites like nbc.com and thewb.com have streaming video you can watch online for free with limited commercials that will get you on the right track for seasons 1 and 2. If you have a budget for new DVD’s and want something different, scoop up the 1st Season of Chuck on DVD. Then catch re-runs on NBC and online and you’ll be ready to go.

There has been some speculation online that Chuck is on the bubble with NBC, a term which is used to say that a network is 50/50 on choosing to renew a show. Both me and my kids watch this show now faithfully every week and are starting to influence others to get their friends and parents to check it out too. It would be sad if this show didn’t get a chance to build more viewers for next season as it only just completed it’s sophomore season. I would hope that NBC chooses to renew this series for a third season and to give it a chance to continue to build more viewers and fans. I just started watching this season on TV thanks to the show being online for viewing at nbc.com. Imagine though how many more of us are out there who are ready to tune into NBC next season to catch this show and others. Here’s to hoping that Chuck will find a way to get out of this one too. Don’t stay in the car… go in and watch Chuck!