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Netflix lovers out there, rejoice! You can now manage your Netflix queue right from your desktop using a new Adobe AIR application called Queued. Created as a demonstration of how AIR and the Dojo Toolkit can be used together to create rich hybrid applications, Queued is open-source, BSD-licensed software. Although the point for Queued's existence may have be to demo different types of technology, the end result is definitely something we all can enjoy.

We're currently running a series of posts about recommendation technologies and in the comments of our last post about the Netflix Prize, a company called Jinni made itself known. Jinni is a kind of 'Pandora for movies', because it aims to recommend movies and tv shows to you based on its Movie Genome (aping Pandora's Music Genome Project). Jinni's genome project contains over two thousand "genes" that describe plot, mood, style, setting, soundtrack and more. Jinni says that its ontology was created by film professionals - much like Pandora employs people to create its unique music database.

Back in the days when you used to have to walk into a video store to rent a VHS tape, I would go through the same thing every week. After spending what seemed like hours wandering, I would set my tape down on the counter. This was the clerk's cue to sigh heavily and shake his head. Then he'd quietly pick up my tape, walk away, and return with three or four completely different films. Over and over, this happened, introducing me to an eclectic mix of cinema which, without those helpful clerks, would have remained hidden.

When movies came to the online world, I always had hopes of rekindling that magic virtually, but more often than not, I wound up checking out the wrong video. Now, a new service proposes to change that, by bringing the video clerks back into the mix. Meet Clerk Dogs.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Blockbuster, the beleaguered video rental chain, is planning to use Microsoft's Live Mesh platform to deliver streaming video to desktops and mobile devices. The article is weak on specifics, but Blockbuster seems to be planning to use Live Mesh specifically to allow users to start watching a movie on one TV and then to continue the movie on another TV or mobile device later on. Bockbuster's CIO Keith Morrow also mentioned a parental notification system that would alert parents if a child tried to watch a movie during homework time.

According to CNET's Greg Sandoval, full-length movies might be coming to YouTube in the near future. According to Sandoval, who bases his report on "two execs with knowledge of the negotiations," Google has been in negotiations with major Hollywood film companies for quite a while now. These movies would be monetized through ads, though it isn't clear if these would be standard pre- or post-roll ads, or if Google is planning to roll out a new ad format for these movies.

It is, of course, no secret that Google is having a very hard time monetizing YouTube. While it is one of Google's most successful acquisitions in terms of its userbase (more people now perform searches on YouTube than on Yahoo), it has at best been a loss leader for Google so far.

Having owned Xcreative, a web development company that specialized in websites and marketing for the movie industry, the founders of MeDeploy (Christian Taylor, Joelle Musante, and Abe Lettelleir) were very familiar with the film industry. But for every filmmaker they helped, several more were turned away. Why? Cost. So many of the filmmakers simply couldn't afford the services the company provided.

Finding the perfect movie list that fits your preferences can be a chore. With thousands of movies and even more movie lists comprised of "the greatest", most won't amount to your standards. Flickchart is a new service that aims to be your one stop portal for finding the best movies.

The Filter, a personalized content filtering system which had been hanging around in beta status since sometime in 2006 (our coverage) has finally opened its doors to everyone and officially launched. The service was pioneered by musician Peter Gabriel and, at its beginning, was not much more than a playlist creation tool for iTunes. Today, The Filter has morphed into a larger recommendation system that finds not just music, but also movies, TV, and internet videos, customized to your personal tastes.

Blockbuster is struggling, and seems to be trying as hard as it can to keep that moniker. Even though the company's finance's are looking up, it continues to make one questionable move after another in its attempt to compete with Netflix, Apple, and Amazon. From its decision to try buying Circuit City -- another struggling retailer -- in some crazy scheme to sell movies and TVs in the same store, to the company's latest hair-brained move: in-store movie download kiosks.

There was an article over the weekend in the New York Times about new tactics Warner Brothers is planning to boost flagging DVD sales. Warner plans to release direct-to-DVD companion films alongside new releases in the future, in an attempt to build buzz for the later DVD release of the main feature. What they really should be doing, is to ditch the traditional DVD model altogether, and take a look at some of the things alt rocker Trent Reznor has done over the past few months.