Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) may be the world's largest electronics retailer, but it realizes that it faces a huge threat to a hefty chunk of its business. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is moving plenty of movies and other soon-to-be former DVD fare through iTunes, staking a claim on a business that once belonged to Best Buy. The big box store is getting ready to fight back (finally?).

Using technology it's licensing from Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ: SNIC), Best Buy is opening an online store for movies and television shows. Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn says this move will expand the company's presence in services and will bolster company loyalty. That's the press release version, of course. The reality is that Best Buy needed to do something to protect this portion of its revenue and probably should have made the move several years ago.

Where do you tweet? When? More important, what's normal? Are you some kind of freak?

A recent Gadgetology study by Retrovo.com, a consumer electronics shopping site, seeks to ascertain where the line in the sand is in regards to social media use (and overuse). If you're 35 or younger, regular use of sites such as Twitter and Facebook is common (big shock, right?). It looks to Retrovo like a new addiction may be taking root.

"Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), already on our recommended list selection, announced fiscal Q3 earnings after the bell last night that, to no one's surprise, easily topped Wall Street estimates," notes Geoffrey Seiler.

In his Bull Market.com advisory, he reviews the latest earnings report and offers his outlook for the shares -- including a boost to his price target for the stock.

"For the quarter ended June 27th, the company earned $1.23 billion, or $1.35 a share, up 15% from $1.07 billion, or $1.19 a share, a year ago. Analysts were only looking for EPS of $1.17.

Now that Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is the last surviving member of the national specialty consumer electronics retail club, where can it go? Up and up. Sure, mass chains like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and others have stepped up to the plate and are greatly enhancing their consumer electronics sections, but then again Best Buy has a new CEO who is thinking differently and isn't going to give an inch if he can help it.

Online retailer Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is looking to extend the reach of its Kindle -- a wireless reading device -- into the hands of consumers, and hopes that cutting the price will speed adoption in a price-sensitive world. Formerly priced at $359, the Kindle will now be sold for $299, though the more advanced Kindle DX will still maintain its $489 price tag.

Amazon, known mainly for selling books online before branching out into other areas, has made the Kindle a focal point of creating new growth for the site. The company has been offering generous 10% payouts via its affiliate program for creating sales, compared to the typical 4% paid on other items. A June 30 research report from Cowen & Co. obtained by DailyFinance estimated that 800,000 Kindle units had been sold so far; the company estimates that more than 2.6 million will be sold by the end of 2010.

Best Buy Inc. (NYSE: BBY) has seen resurgent competition from mass retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT); are the employees of either retailer better? Best Buy seems to think so. Some of the newer advertising indicates that Best Buy employees are better at helping customers than Wal-Mart employees.

Although Wal-Mart has greatly enhanced the consumer electronics sections of its supercenter locations in the last 18 months, do the employees really know the ins and outs of all the new technology? Wal-Mart seems to really want to step up its competitiveness against Best Buy and others, but does it have the backbone to do so outside of just the products?

It's not too hard to find stories on the latest Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) e-book reader, the Kindle 2.

But the newly released Kindle has a lot to live up to, according to a recent ChangeWave survey of original Kindle e-book owners.

Fifty-eight percent of owners of the original Kindle said they were very satisfied with their device, and 31% said they were somewhat satisfied. Only 4% said they were unsatisfied.

So, what's kept them happy?

"Though I've long believed Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN) was easily the best managed firm in the GPS space, it continues to feel the sting from competitive forces," says Paul McWilliams.

Here, the technology stock specialist and editor of Next Inning reviews the company and the prospects for its new entry in the cell phone market -- the nuvifone.

"As you would expect, the nuvifone is very GPS-centric with all sorts of Geo-tagging features for email, SMS and pictures. It also includes an Opera browser and is fully capable of viewing Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and working with both personal and enterprise email systems.

"While I've not seen one in person yet, what I've heard from those who have and from what I've seen on the GRMN web site, I think the product has potential.

"The key, however, will be how the nuvifone is marketed and how well GRMN does in building an applications store, a factor that I think will be a huge differentiation driver as we move forward in the Smartphone sector.

Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN), which makes GPS-enabled consumer devices, is a new buy recommendation from value investor Charles Mizrahi. Here's his long-term outlook from his Hidden Values Alert.

"Garmin a leading worldwide provider of navigation, communications and information devices, most of which are enabled by Global Positioning System (GPS) technology.

"It designs, develops, manufactures and markets a diverse family of hand-held, portable and fixed-mount GPS-enabled products and other navigation, communications and information products for the automotive/mobile, outdoor/fitness, marine and general aviation markets.

"Aaron Rents (NASDAQ: RNT) is a new addition to the focus list that carries both fundamental and technical strength," says Michael Vodicka, an analyst with Zacks Elite Investment Research.

"The company is a specialty retailer of consumer electronic goods like stereos and televisions that owns or operates 1,545 stores in the United States and Canada. Aaron Rents was founded in 1955 and has a market cap of $1.38 billion.

"In spite of a short-lived drop in mid October, this stock has held up well in an environment where consumers are pulling back on discretionary spending. The big share-price rebound was predicated on the company's solid third-quarter results, reported in late October.

"While I've watched video game maker Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) for many years, I've never felt it was cheap," says growth stock specialist Nate Pile.

In his Nate's Notes, he now says, "I am thrilled to see the stock price finally experience the sort of pullback that justifies a buy rating; indeed, I wasn't interested at $50 four months ago, but at $17 today, I can't help but get excited."

"Over the years, Electronic Arts has amassed an impressive library of titles. In particular, you may be familiar with the entire Sims collection, as well as the company's extensive lineup of sports games (including Madden NFL and Tiger Woods PGA Tour, for example).

"In addition, Spore is a recently introduced hit, and some other titles you may be familiar with (or at least seen in TV commercials) include Need For Speed, Medal of Honor, and Rock Band.

This post is part of a special annual report -- Top Stock Picks '09 -- in which TheStockAdvisors.com asked 75 leading newsletter advisors to select their favorite investment for the new year.

"We believe that the most prudent way to make money in the stock market is through long-term investing in 'best of the best' companies," says growth stock specialist Nate Pile.

In his Nate's Notes newsletter, he explains, "With that in mind, we turn to one of our core portfolio holdings as out favorite investment for 2009 -- Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), whose products represent 'best in class' in just about every category in which it competes.

"We believe investors have shifted their focus entirely to the extreme near-term and are completely ignoring the long-term fundamentals that are in place for the Apple.

"To be sure, the stock has lost over 50% of its value over the past twelve months, but we believe the reasons for the decline are all short-term in nature, and we cannot help but get excited by the opportunity to once again become more aggressive about adding additional shares to our portfolio.