Blockbuster calls it quits for their remaining stores in Canada, Netflix increases it's rental rates in the US from $9.99 to $15.98 (wowzers), but remains the same $7.99 in Canada, and Youtube makes streaming video rental available in Canada for about $4.99 per rental.

Wow. How did they orchestrate THAT! Don't see alignment of the stars like that very often. So how are brands to capitalize on these big changes in the video rental industry? Here are a few things you can do:

1) If you run a blog or social feed, post something about it and how it affects your business or customers. Maybe you install home theatre systems, this would be a perfect up-sell. Computer shops should be pushing new computer sales to better stream these vids on. Make sense?

2) Get into bed with Netflix for its low cost (in Canada), and offer a promo for your customers. Dealerships! Say so long to "free gas" promos. Let's do "Free movie" promos instead.

3) If you're brand isn't already on YouTube, you might want to consider it. Youtube is the third largest search engine behind Google and Yahoo. (a bit unrelated to movies, but whatevs)

4) Brands need to be looking into advertising on streaming video. Know a good way to imbed geo-located ads? Brilliant. Are we going to see intelligent ads that know where we've browsed, bought, or "liked"? I sure hope so. If you're a brand and the movie crowd is your thing, better get on this.

5) Smaller market retailers can get in on the Blockbuster bust by buying all their old DVD's at sick-low prices. My parents owned a little store in an RV Resort and these rented like hotcakes. People still rent, just on a smaller scale.

Anything else? Care to share?