Did You Miss These? The 5 Most Buzzworthy Entertainment News Articles from Cinco de Mayo Weekend

If you're still coming down from your Cinco de Mayo celebration (or your weekend plans in general, if you didn't celebrate), you may have missed some eyebrow-raising news. While you were playing hard, the entertainment biz was moving hard, too.

Check these articles out from around the web and get caught up.  :)

Amazon's 14-Pilot Experiment Blazes a New Path in VOD Marketing

How many Hollywood movies and big studio TV shows have you seen and been tempted to yawn at? You recognized the plot within the first five minutes, you could tell what would happen before it did, or worse, you could dictate an entire plot based solely on the trailer.

Hollywood and big studios' risk-averse culture, though once justified, has now become irreverently obvious, and while people still eat what they feed them, they're starting to look elsewhere for their entertainment thanks to video-on-demand (VOD) services like Hulu and Netflix offering original series content.

On Friday, April 20, 2013, Amazon Instant Streaming locked arms with Hulu and Netflix to shift moviegoers from big theaters to home theaters and mobile devices with original content of its own.

Participant Media's New Cable Network 'Pivot' Affects Your Entertainment Career -- Here's How

Participant Media's cable network pivot, which launches August 1, 2013, aims to spark a tide of global activism, and even aims to revolutionize cable network versatility.

It's aimed at the coveted millenials (18-34 years old) and wants to inspire groundbreaking social change through them. They're the perfect market since they're immersed in entertainment culture and will soon enter the entertainment business themselves.

"We wanted to design a next-generation channel for the next generation of consumers and leaders," said pivot President Evan Shapiro, former head of AMC Networks' Sundance and IFC channels.

What does all that have to do with you? Well, consider the prospect: a new wave of conscientious youth armed with tools to be more expressive than any preceding generation and fired with the impetus to be socially responsible.

That promises the potential for more online videos, indie films and music to be produced. Perhaps thought-provoking material will actually return to the mainstream (gasp!).

Furthermore, pivot is a nascent cable network, which is an opportunity you should jump on now. Why?

What Roger Ebert's Life Can Teach Even the Greenest Entertainment Business Newbie

Roger Ebert and his wife Chaz Hammelsmith

"Work for a cause, not for applause;
 Live life to express, not to impress;
 Don't strive to make your presence noticed, just make your absence felt." -Unknown

Iconic film critic Roger Ebert certainly fulfilled the quote, down to the final statement, as the nation demonstrated at his funeral yesterday. Hollywood elite and politicos braved the cold and rain to join local Chicagoans to celebrate the industry veteran's life.

Whether you're an entertainment industry vet or a total newbie, Ebert's life and the celebration of it leaves an indelible challenge for you.

19 of the Most Popular Video-on-Demand Sites for Film and TV Addicts [Slideshow]

Back in the late nineties and early 2000's, Netflix ruled the video rental domain, with its groundbreaking convenience of postage-paid return envelopes, deadline-free DVD rentals, and online streaming, successfully knocking Blockbuster Video out of the water.

However, in the 16 years Netflix has been around, a plethora (yes, an excessive amount) of online streaming and VOD services have surfaced -- some with a specific niche, some just for the sake of competition. The selection can prove almost overwhelming.

You can take a deep breath now -- the Geek's got a resource that distills the mass to the 19 most popular services.