Redbox is a DVD vending machine that rents movies for $1/day plus tax.  It rented it’s 1 billionth movie in September and earnings for the third quarter came in higher than expected.  Owned by Coinstar, Redbox grew 54.2% last year to nearly $306 million.

It’s competitions, Netflix, is up 214% so far in 2010 and has added 1.9 million subscribers during the third quarter.

The convenience of Redbox is great since most locations are at your grocery store.  You can pick up your popcorn, soda or other movie munchies, grab your movie and go.  For those nights you can’t wait for your Netflix to come in mail and streaming isn’t available, there is probably a Redbox near you.

Twitter recently announced some of their biggest news all year offering video and pictures for tweet posts. This new feature will show a sidebar on the twitter screen that will allow the user to post a picture or video relating to their tweet as opposed to a link or a separate website. Before this, users were limited to 140 characters to share their tweet without visuals.

The new Twitter is also expected to include better advertisements and a way to scroll to the bottom of the page without clicking on a “more” button. They believe these moves will help make them more “user friendly”.Twitter partnered with several media providers including YouTube and Google in order to make this move possible. With Facebook continuing to gather people all over world, Twitter may be thinking of ways to keep with their social media users. Will you be switching to Twitter to share pictures or videos or continue to post them on outlets such as Facebook?

We have all spent a nice amount of time on YouTube enjoying some videos made by people like you and I. Somehow some of these videos make it into the spotlight and get national attention. The good news for these sorts of filmmakers is that they might be eligible to receive cash from the famous video site. News reports are stating there might be some monetary motivation to create some great videos for YouTube. It seems that if your video is “likable”, then the peeps over at YouTube could reach out to you to discuss being paid for your video. This is in an effort to help motivate video makers to create a better quality video for their website. Good move or something that will just create some craziness amongst video makers?

We know YouTube is a great place to market yourself, your company, or simply have fun. Enjoy Leadpile’s YouTube videos!

Years and years have gone by since Microsoft initially rolled out the Microsoft Office portfolio of applications.
Since it’s original launch, Google has rolled out similar (but not as successful) applications.
Reuters is reporting that Microsoft has announced several improvements to the Office applications. The updated Microsoft Office applications (ie- Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook etc) will allow users to edit photos in Word, use video in PowerPoint, and connect email (Outlook) contacts to Facebook information. Unfortunately, there is a pricey price tag associated with these new applications (between $100-$500), yet the similar products that Google rolled out 4 years ago is roughly $50 a year per user for companies, and free for consumers.
It seems Microsoft is trying to keep on their toes with innovative advancements on their Office applications to try and keep up with other applications such as the Google Docs. However, I will say Microsoft does have one up on the Google products, and that is most business’s PCs contain the Office products, and not Google Docs.
Will this Google Microsoft war ever end?