The video rental industry is feeling the economic pinch, and key player Netflix is in the thick of it.  Today, I received the notice that was already floating around the internet – Your plan rate is going up.  Here is a screen shot of the note that I got from them, outlining the changes:

Awesome.

While a buck a month isn’t going to break the bank, it’s a buck that I wasn’t planning on spending. While this also won’t cause me to cancel my account, I’m not happy with the extra out-go being taken from my income.  Apparently, the cost of managing their DVD inventory is getting to be a bit on the costly side.

The company also introduced a new streaming only plan that allows anyone with an internet connection to instantly watch movies and TV shows at a very affordable $7.99 a month.  If you’ve got a decent pipe coming into your house, and don’t mind not being able to put your hand on a DVD, this may be a huge winner for you.

Additional adjustments to their pricing plans can be seen below.

JK Beck is celebrating the release of her latest book in her Shadow Keepers series by offering a contest for a Kindle 3G at Bitten By Books.  JK’s series is a dark urban fantasy ride with werewolves and the lot to keep you on the edge of your seat.  In her world, the magic and creatures of the night are out in front for all to see, and the series is sort of a paranormal Law & Order.  Check our her post here.  The contest runs until 10/11/2010, so don’t miss it.

Here is the blurb from Amazon:

Seven innocents have been brutally murdered in Los Angeles, yet the Shadow Alliance has no suspects and no leads. As the body count mounts, the age-old feud between vampires and werewolves threatens to explode.

Lissa Monroe—a strong-willed, ravishing succubus who entices men to surrender their souls—agrees to go undercover for the Alliance. Her mission: infiltrate the mind of werewolf leader Vincent Rand, a ferociously alluring enemy who exerts a powerful hold over her. As the City of Angels teeters on the brink of apocalypse, these two adversaries must join together in order to survive an even more lethal enemy hidden in plain sight.

I love to read, and my absolute favorite is anything paranormal, sci-fi, or fantasy.  However, like most people, I have tightened my wallet, and cut back on purchasing books.  Luckily for me, Amazon has plenty of great reads for free or under $4.  Start with one of the originals, Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the low, low price of FREE.  By favorite book blog, Bitten By Books, has put together a list of 101 books – 83 free and 18 other dirt cheap titles mainly in the world of paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and few other fun titles.  Make sure to go check them out.

Barnes & Noble announced that they are putting themselves on the market.  No, not the tablet market, but the company is selling itself.  So, if you want to buy a bookstore, there is currently one available.  This has renewed the debate of the coming end of the printed word.  I have seen the end coming for newspapers.  I know I get all of my news on-line or via TV.  Many papers have had cutbacks and even closed.  With the success of the Kindle, Nook, and iPad, the next item on the extinction list is the book.  Now, I am a big gadget geek.  If I wasn’t, would I be here writing for JAMM?  However, I love my books in their paper versions.  There is just something cozy about crawling into bed with a good book that would just lose that feeling if I’m holding onto an eReader, and not turning those paper pages.  I stare at a computer screen most of the day, so I want something different when I relax.  I am hoping that the books hold on for a while to come.

What do you prefer: paper or electronic?  Do you like the e-ink screen better than a traditional computer screen?  Is this the end for books?

Have you ever thought to pay for some free content, even if already accessible via search engines or dedicated sites? It sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

We recently talked about the next frontier in phishing, i.e. tabnabbing, a new way to obtain your login and password via untrusted third party plug-ins inserted into web pages.

Today, we point you to a different story, detailed and well documented at Gear Diary, about a site promising unlimited eBooks for iPad.

Well, it turns out that the whole story is somehow different, but I will not spoil it, and rather point you to the “Gear Diary Trilogy on myPadMedia”, i.e. the involved site:

• Buyer beware – myPadMedia (pt. 1)
• MyPadMedia strikes back (pt. 2)
• MyPadMedia: The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth! (pt. 3)

At the end of the story, you will understand how a site like this could seem so appealing to the uninformed and you will want to raise your guard level, as I am sure someone else is already doing the above…