When it comes to audience 
reach, Netflix owes a debt of gratitude to the video game industry.
A new Nielsen Co. study finds that Netflix users are primarily streaming content to television sets – with half of those customers streaming the service through their Wii, PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.
Smart TVs are starting to gain
traction with users – but having a boob tube that can connect to the internet is still not a big selling point.
In-Stat research says over 60 percent of households with a connected TV use a TV app at least once per week. Not surprisingly, Netflix and YouTube are the most popular apps – but interest seems to be growing in the competition.
Netflix rolled the dice two 
weeks ago, announcing a significant change – and price increase – to its members. Now, it looks like a lot of those members may be planning to cut their ties with the service and embrace the competition.
A new survey from Wedbush Securities of 1,098 people finds that 22 percent of Netflix subscribers say they plan to discontinue their subscription with the company, and substitute its content with a combination of services, including Redbox, Hulu, Amazon’s streaming video initiative and traditional cable pay-per-view.
Having established partnerships 
with both Netflix and Hulu on the Xbox 360, Microsoft might be gearing up to compete with them.
The company is reportedly planning to roll out a streaming video service of its own under the Zune brand later this year.
Amazon is ramping up 
its fight against Netflix.
The online retailer, which lets members of its Amazon Prime service stream over 5,000 films and television shows, has added another 1,000 offerings to the mix – and is prominently letting users know that on its front page today.
If you live in Tennessee and a buddy 
offers to loan you his or her login to Netflix, it might be wise to politely decline.
A new law in the state, signed into legislation yesterday, makes it a crime to use another person’s log-in to stream video or music – even if that person has given you permission to do so.
The skies are getting cloudy 
in the virtual world.
As cloud storage options grow, the technology is edging closer and closer to the mainstream—and that’s creating some confusion. The abundance of options, combined with the general lack of mainstream education about the advantages and disadvantages of the technology, has a lot of people scratching their head.
While there’s a lot of general confusion about what, 
exactly, cloud computing is, identifying the industry’s big players isn’t too difficult.
Some have very public faces. Others operate in the background. But they all play a key part in this emerging field, which is just as important to less-than-thrilling business necessities as it is to your home entertainment. And a fair number of players have a foot in both ponds.
While royalty rates may be the first thing you 
think of in the face-off between Hollywood’s major content creators and outlets such as Netflix and YouTube, there’s a much bigger battle brewing under the surface.
Online video, historically, has not been something that compares well with film or television. Production budgets, if they exist at all, are lower — and due to differences in the ad model, there hasn’t been a lot of incentive to create programming that’s on par with what the studios and networks regularly release.
That’s changing, though, with both Netflix and YouTube taking tentative steps into the original content business. And while both are just beginning to explore the field, the moves already have network and studio brass on high alert.
It takes a lot to shift the course of an 
industry. For every truly disruptive company, there are dozens that try and fail – and plenty of copycats that follow, but fall short of the new model.
Being disruptive doesn’t always mean being first to the market with an idea. It’s about executing it better than any competitor – and staying ahead of the curve from there.
Chris Morris: Journalist 