Vudu is trying to break the voodoo curse of online-TV boxes, but is having a tough time: it has laid off about 16-18 of its employees out of 100, and is now trying to build on its retail presence. It has also hired a new CFO: Chris Watts, a former eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) executive, as the former CFO left for “personal reasons,” according to company rep, quoted in this News.com story. Recently the company added adult movies within its portfolio, always a desperation move for most online video providers. It has $21 million in funding from Greylock and Benchmark.

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The company added Mark Jung, co-founder and former CEO of IGN and COO of Fox Interactive Media (NYSE: NWS), as its CEO in fall last year, but still hasn’t gotten much traction in the industry. Competition is fierce, even though the market is still very nascent and small. Moviebeam, Akimbo and others are prime examples…there has been some positive reaction to the Netflix-Roku box but too early to make any trendlines out of that.