Most of the time the entertainment industry makes paying for good content a PITA, but the situation is getting better every day. Case in point: Today Amazon's bringing its video offerings to the Xbox 360.

All videos you've purchased or have currently rented from Amazon are now available on your Xbox 360. If you're an Amazon Prime member, you'll also find the entire Prime Instant Video library waiting for you.

Getting started is a piece of cake:

1. Install the Amazon Instant Video application to your Xbox from the Apps section.
2. Launch Amazon's new app and sign in with your Amazon credentials.

If you aren't familiar with Amazon's streaming video offerings, it's a little like Netflix, but with the additional option of a la carte purchasing. Check out the Instant Video homepage for more details.

Amazon Instant Video on Xbox 360 | Amazon via Geekwire

Amazon is often our go-to place for buying things online, but the best deals aren't always obvious. There are several ways you can save quite a bit of money when shopping on Amazon, but only if you utilize the right programs and strategies. Here's how.

Set Up Price Alerts

You may not always find the price you want when shopping on Amazon, but with prices fluctuating daily you may get it at some point down the line. It's annoying to have to check the site for a better deal on a daily basis, so avoid all that hassle by setting up price alerts with OnlinePriceAlert. All you do is enter the URL of an Amazon item, your email address, and the target price. (You can do this through their bookmarklet, too, to avoid going directly to the site.) When the price drops to your target, you'll get an email. It's as simple as that.

Get an Affiliate Buddy

Amazon has an affiliates program called Amazon Associates that gives you up to a 15% referral fee on any purchases people make with your affiliate links. While you can try purchasing from yourself to get an extra 15% off, Amazon tends to notice and remove your commission when they do. A better idea is to get an affiliate buddy. Basically, find another friend who shops on Amazon frequently and give them your affiliate code. Whenever they buy something, they use your code. In return, you do the same for them. This way you each get 15% back on whatever the other buys. It may not always be perfectly even, but it's a good way to generate some extra savings without cheating the system.

By the way, the easiest way to add your affiliate code is to append this to an Amazon URL: &tag=YOUR_AFFILIATE_CODE (e.g &tag=gizmodo-20)

Subscribe & Save (or Just Save)

Amazon has a program called Subscribe & Save that allows you to commit to purchasing an item on a regular basis and receive a discount for doing so. The discount is generally between 10% and 15%, saving you quite a bit over the course of a year. You can choose to subscribe to a product every months, every six months, or several options in between. This works for many products on the site such as batteries, shampoo, cleaners, toilet paper, and other stuff you'll need on a regular basis. You can even use it to automate your office lunches. It's delivered to your home when you need it and you don't pay for shipping. You save money and it's really, really convenient.

But what if you don't want to actually subscribe to a product? It doesn't really matter. If you buy something via Subscribe & Save and you don't want to continue your subscription, you can just cancel it. Amazon will even remind you a new shipment is coming so you cancel it before they bill you. You make absolutely no commitment to the program by choosing a product, and you can skip any shipments if you don't need it. Amazon just gives you the discount on any Subscribe & Save shipment, whether or not you actually use that subscription. So if you want 10-15% off, just buy the first subscription. You can just cancel it afterwards if you don't want more.

Use the Amazon Prime Free Trial Strategically

Amazon offers a one month free trial of their Prime service, which includes free two-day shipping, discounted overnight and Saturday, and a bunch of other benefits. If you don't want to actually pay for the service, you can get a month for free. Just pick that month strategically. For example, pick December or November for fast, free holiday shipping. One important thing to remember is that you can get another free Amazon Prime trial every 13 months. If you always want to get free shipping during the holiday season, just stagger your free trials around that time period so you can utilize the free shipping. Personally, I think Amazon Prime is a service worth paying for, but if you don't shop a lot on Amazon it might not be as worthwhile to you. If that's the case, just use the Prime trial to your advantage and reap its benefits for free when you need them most.

Buy from Warehouse Deals Whenever Possible

Amazon Warehouse Deals offers the products Amazon sells at a discount, often just because they were returned in imperfect packaging. (Perhaps that's how used diapers made it on the list.) The reasons vary, but in most cases you're getting a good-as-new product at a significant discount. As an added bonus, Warehouse Deals are eligible for Amazon Prime Shipping. When you're making any purchase, always look through the additional purchasing options. You may find a Warehouse Deal that can save you a lot of money.

Sign Up for Student Discounts

We love student discounts—forever. Amazon decided to join in on the fun with a program called Amazon Student. Not only can you can get free Amazon Prime for six months as part of the program, but exclusive deals and promotions. Definitely sign up for the program when you're headed off to college. It's a good way to save money when stocking up on dorm supplies.

Although not as much, moms get discounts too. If you need some diapers at 20% off, sign up for the program.

Get a Free Android App and Heavily Discounted Kindle Book Every Day

Amazon has two particularly useful daily deals: the Free App of the Day (Android) and the Kindle Daily Deal. To promote their app store, Amazon chooses one premium app to offer for free every day. The Kindle Daily Deal is similar, providing one heavily discounted book on a daily basis. If you have an Android device, the free app space is definitely worth watching. If you enjoy reading on an electronic device of some kind (as Kindle apps are available for practically everything), you'll also want to check the Kindle deals as well.

Photo by Vakhrushev Pavel (Shutterstock).

Sorting through the Amazon store for free ebooks can be a bit of a mess. To simplify the process Zero Dollar Books is a simple webapp that aggregates all the best selling free ebooks and shows them off in a nice clean view.

Zero Dollar Books taps into Amazon's Kindle best sellers list and then grabs all the books currently free. Since Amazon updates prices on the hour, so does Zero Dollar Books. The book list isn't always full of winners, but if you're looking to check out some free ebooks on your Kindle then Zero Dollar Books makes it easy. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed to get constant updates. If you're looking for more options for free ebooks, be sure to check out our guide to grabbing ebooks from the library and other sources.

Zero Dollar Books | via Digital Inspiration

So you've loaded up your Kindle with free books, but you have a few other non-book documents you'd like to read on it. Here are some easy ways to send any web article, PDF, or document straight to your Kindle (or smartphone with the Kindle app).

Step One: Find Your Kindle Email Address

To set this up, we're going to use Kindle's Personal Document Syncing service, which relies on an email address—for example, whitson@kindle.com—to send articles to your device. Whatever you use is going to require you to know this address, so to find it, head to this page in Amazon's Kindle settings and click on "Personal Document Settings" in the left sidebar. You should see your Kindle's email address near the top of the page. Copy this down and enter it when you're prompted to by one of the apps in step two.

Step Two: Choose Your Sending Method

There are a few different ways to send documents to your Kindle. Here are a few of our favorites.

Via Email: If you have a PDF, DOC, HTML, RTF, or other compatible file, you can just attach it to an email and send it to your Kindle email address to have it show up in your Kindle library on your device. It isn't the fastest way to do it, but you can do it from nearly anywhere, so it's pretty convenient.

Amazon's Send to Kindle Desktop App: Amazon also has a desktop app for both Windows and OS X that lets you send compatible files to your Kindle just by right-clicking on them on your computer and pressing "Send to Kindle". This is especially handy if you send a lot of PDFs or DOC files.

The Klip.me Bookmarklet or Chrome Extension: If you're more of a web junkie, you'll love Klip.me. It has a bookmarklet that works on nearly any browser and will send any web article to your Kindle with one click. It also has a really cool Chrome extension that can grab an article, strip it of formatting and (if you so choose) images and then send it to your Kindle, which can be really nice. If you don't like Klip.me, you might also try the very popular Kindlebility bookmarklet, too.

You can also send articles to your Kindle from services like Instapaper Readability, though unless you've already stored those articles, it lengthens the process by one step—so the above choices are quicker if you stumble upon something and want to send it to your Kindle right away.

Step Three: Set Up Personal Document Syncing

Lastly, you'll need to authorize the above apps to send documents to your Kindle. Head back to Amazon's Kindle settings page, click on Personal Document Settings in the left sidebar, and scroll down to "Approved Personal Document Email List". From there, add a new email address and type in the address of whatever service you're using from step two—for example, if you're using Readability, you'll need to add kindle@readability.com to the approved list.

Lastly, you can send these articles over either USB, 3G, Wi-Fi. Here's how that works:

If you want to send articles over USB, you can use a slightly different version of your Kindle email address in the apps above: name@free.kindle.com instead of name@kindle.com. It should return to you a file compatible with your Kindle, which you can then drag over to it using a USB cable as described here.

If you have a Kindle with Wi-Fi or a smartphone, your articles should show up as soon as you have a valid Wi-Fi connection. You won't be charged for this service.

If you have a 3G-enabled Kindle, you can also send articles when you aren't near Wi-Fi using Amazon's Whispernet. You can enable this on the Personal Document Settings page, under "Whipspernet Delivery Options". When you enable this, Amazon will automatically send your articles over 3G if you don't have Wi-Fi connectivity and will charge you $0.15 per Megabyte transferred (per article—so an article 1MB or less will cost $0.15).

Alternatively, if you don't want to pay money (but don't have Wi-Fi), you can keep Wispernet disabled and add another step to the process to get those articles on your Kindle. Once you've sent an article to your Kindle using an app in step two, go to the Amazon Kindle settings page and you should find that article in your Kindle library. Click the Actions dropdown and click "Deliver to My..." and choose your Kindle from the list. It'll then send the article to your Kindle over 3G, but without charging you. Photo by The Approximate Photographer.

Step Four: Enjoy Your Articles

That's it! It sounds like a lot of setup, but once you're done, you should be able to send nearly any article or document to your Kindle with one click. Then, whenever you turn on your Kindle, you'll have a plethora of articles ready to read. There are a lot of other ways to send stuff to your Kindle, but these are by far the best and easiest in our opinion. Check out Amazon's Help page on the subject, or share your own methods in the comments.