The year of hope and change is certainly off to a grim start in the tech world. Last week alone saw layoff announcements from stalwarts like Intel (INTC) and Microsoft (MSFT), as well as Web 2.0 companies like Digg, just to name a few. If you’ve lost your job or had your salary frozen and are seriously tightening your belt, the (slightly) good news is that there are more options than ever to keep yourself entertained during these economic end times.

A few months ago, I defended the value of cable, writing that $70 a month wasn’t a bad deal for what you get. But as your wallet gets lighter, you may not want to spend $840 a year for service. Before you fire off a comment saying “Just watch Hulu!” yes, that is a good idea. Between Hulu and the network sites like ABC.com and CBS.com, you can watch just about any program you like for free. But then you’re watching on a small laptop screen while that big TV sits there, idle. You bought the big TV; you should use it.

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Mel Brooks said the hardest thing to do was to make a person sitting alone in a room laugh out loud. Laughter is social, and that’s important to consider as watching online video on your laptop or handheld device with headphones can be a pretty isolating experience. CBS is looking to transform this experience with its new Social Viewing Rooms that let users separated by geography watch and interact with TV shows together online. But can it truly be social?

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Sure, most of us can get pretty fired up over the thought of a monthly 250GB bandwidth cap, but what about the companies that provide online video services? After all, as Om Malik pointed out, the cap isn’t about excessive bandwidth usage as much as it is about stymieing online video sources like Hulu, Netflix and Amazon.

Roku, which makes the Netflix player, isn’t worried about the cap. The $99 set-top box maker is more of a facilitator than a provider, but its entire business is built upon delivering video to you over your broadband connection, so a cap could impact its sales.

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Man, there’s been a lot of comics-related news this week. Marvel Entertainment is keeping it going with its serious push into online territory. Marvel just hired former Sony Pictures Digital EVP Ira Rubenstein to head up its new Global Digital Media Group. With big budget high-profile motion pictures like Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk on tap for this summer, what does Rubenstein have in mind for online?

I spoke with Rubenstein yesterday about his plans. Since he just started his new gig, he wouldn’t get too specific about budgets or plans to launch dedicated web series, but he definitely has the Marvel faithful in mind.

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With technologies like TiVo and text messaging taking over the world, marketers are being forced to rethink their approach to advertising.

The New York Times writes that NBC is hearkening back to its roots by moving beyond the 30-second commercial to form bigger, longer-term relationships with advertisers.

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During a recent earnings call, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said that his company will “work with Apple” to ensure that Flash apps would run on the iPhone. This after Steve Jobs publicly dissed Flash as being “too slow to be useful” and its stepsister Flash Lite as “not capable of being used with the Web.”

But like Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction,” Flash is not going to be ignored.

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Next year’s switch from analog to digital TV broadcasts could produce more noise than signal, disrupting service for millions of people even if they have the proper converter box, according to a new study from market research firm Centris.

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