Stage Two's blog

Today, Spot.Us the pioneer of community funded journalism, takes a new form in its on-going evolution with new features that give communities more ways to participate in the journalism that matters to them. The organization also hopes the new ways it uses technology will help lead to the first open API for journalism — allowing developers to innovate new, dynamic tools to engage with stories.

Starting today, community members can:

• Pledge time and talent to actively participate in realizing a story
• Show support and raise awareness of a pitch with an easy Spot.Us widget on their website
• Get updates as an investigation evolves  from each story’s progress blog
• Get the word out through enhanced social sharing features for Facebook and Twitter
• Suggest cities for the next Spot.Us expansion

The ability to give not just money, but talent to an investigation, opens up new possibilities. Teams of interested individuals can collaborate with a lead journalist and be an integral part of the work.

All of these improvements are embedded in a redesign of the site that Spot.Us believes will better serve the communities, journalists and other news organizations that work with the site.

Stage Two has been working with Spot.Us since its inception, when it pioneered community funded journalism right here in San Francisco. We were thrilled to see them expand to L.A. in November and congratulate Spot.Us on this latest step!

Coverage So Far:

Business Insider

Idea Lab

Lost Remote

Nieman Journalism Lab

Poynter

Watching TV is supposed to be a laid-back experience. Just sit on the couch and zone out. The web, on the other hand, is filled with awesome video content, but we spend hour after hour typing, clicking, searching, and sorting through endless seas of boring junk to get to one wondrous clip that makes it worth all the effort. So what happens when people start connecting their TV’s to the internet? Good luck trying to sift through all that content with your remote to find one :30 FAIL video that makes you giggle. Truth is, there’s a real problem with finding and watching the best web content out there in a passive, TV-style way – especially when you’re trying to do it on a TV. Today, two of our favorite clients, Boxee and Redux, have teamed up to change all of that.

This morning, Boxee and Redux announced the release of a new crowd-sourced, personalized entertainment app that allows the more than 1 million Boxee users out there to enjoy the web just the way the Geek Gods intended – just sitting back and watching.

The new Redux app gives Boxee users the ability to create personalized channels and streams that are crowd-sourced in real-time, ensuring that the content you see is only what is interesting to you. We’re all big movie fans here at S2 – with Redux, we can subscribe to a crowd-sourced “Great Movie Scenes” channel and just watch as hours of great quotes and scenes are fed to us by the Redux community. There are hundreds of channels just like that on Redux, personalized with everything from One Hit Wonder music videos to videos of cute cats. It’s your tailored “best of the internet” stream, and it’s internet TV the way it was meant to be – passive and personal. We’ll let Boxee and Redux fill you in more but, after that, be sure to grab Boxee, grab the Redux App, grab a ham sandwich and a drink, and just sit back and enjoy.

Check out what other people are saying about the Boxee/Redux App below (will be updated as coverage comes in):

• CrunchGear
• Pocket-Lint
• eHomeUpgrade

Put bluntly VUDU’s streaming service is impressive – it’s one of those things that even makes us jaded veterans “wow” when we can watch a feature film in 1080p HDTV with 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound.  We like working with clients who have amazing technology – in fact, we generally insist on it.  When we started working with VUDU in June 2009, we learned (and then announced) that they were planning to embed their service inside HDTVs and Blu-ray players from major CE manufacturers like LG and Mitsubishi.  This, we thought, is smart.  This is the right way to move the company forward and bring VUDU in front of millions of people (quickly).

In January, we worked with VUDU to announce 5 new partnerships with major CE partners, including Samsung, SANYO, Sharp, Toshiba and VIZIO.  We also announced  VUDU Apps, a platform for delivery of other Internet services, from VUDU movies to Flickr photos to news from the NYT and beyond.  These new partnerships will put VUDU services onto 7 of the big nine TV manufacturers, and distribute VUDU on millions of devices in 2010.

It’s almost funny to think back about VUDU, since we’ve known them since their early days.  In 2007 we thought “these guys have great technology.”  In July 2009 we figured “these guys are smart, and they know how to distribute.”  In January 2010 we saw that VUDU not only knows how to make plans, they know how to execute as well.

Today we learned we weren’t the only ones impressed by the company, as  Wal-Mart announced that they’ve acquired VUDU – they will become a wholly owned subsidiary of  Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.  This is amazing news and a well-earned success by the amazing team at VUDU. In a word: congratulations!

Recently David Pogue wrote a review for the NYT of the VUDU service through an LG Blu-Ray player – he likes it. By partnering with Wal-Mark VUDU will become ever more available to consumers – we think they’ll like it too.

It’s been amazing to work with VUDU.  They’re smart, they work hard, and the product is fun to pitch.  Our phones haven’t stopped ringing and buzzing with calls, texts and emails all day, and it doesn’t look like that will change any time soon.

The bottom line is that this kind of success comes from having a great product – that’s really the key to their success.  Having the right team, being able to execute partnerships, attracting press and ultimately consumers… all those things are important, but none of them are possible without a great product.  Well done VUDU – you nailed it.

The press, as you might imagine, has been covering this news closely.  Techmeme has it at the top of the news right now (been there virtually all day). Some of the key press items we’ve tracked are below, and we’ll try to keep updating the list.

• NYT
• Wal-Mart’s official announcement
• Barron’s
• Engadget
• Financial Times
• Gizmodo
• PCWorld
• AllThingsD
• CNET
• NewTeeVee
• Mashable
• eHomeUpgrade
• Boy Genius Report
• Consumerist

Congrats again to VUDU and Wal-Mart!

Just because social media is practically free does not mean that companies can run with a program and hope that it makes them millions of dollars. In fact, it seems that the fact that it’s free means that you need to take it a bit slower and look closely as to the right application of the service and make sure that it doesn’t hurt the message that you’re trying to send out.

In an eMarketer report on February 11, 2010, it is reported that social media has essentially plateaued. By this, I mean that it has reached a point of maturation where marketers can no longer simply stand idly by and let social media programs run on their own. Moreover, it is becoming even more readily apparent that marketers are also understanding that it’s not a matter of whether social media should be part of their marketing mix, but how and where should it reside. Bottom line here? In order to run a great marketing campaign, thorough planning must be necessary.

Public relations thought-leader, principal of FutureWorks PR and author of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, Brian Solis wrote in a Mashable article a pretty good summary of this issue:

Instead of researching the best ways to engage, many businesses create accounts across multiple social networks and publish content without a plan or purpose. However, businesses that conduct research will find a rewarding array of options and opportunities.

Just automatically setting up things you think you’d need versus sitting down and plotting the objectives, goals, plan of attack and measurement of success won’t lead you to the ROI you so desire. Instead, don’t rush with social media. Look at your audience, what’s being said about you and what tools are available that maximize your reach. Don’t think that all tools in social media must be used, because they don’t have to. As highlighted in the eMarketer.com article, if you have a strategy, you’ll be taken much more seriously than someone who sprays and prays with social media. It is believed that customers think most, if not all, companies should be savvy in using social media so having the knowledge and information lends more credibility and authenticity.

As a benefit of planning and organizing your social media efforts, you’ll be able to look even more closely at the purposes for your web 2.0 needs. In the above chart, you can see some of the top reasons for using social media by US Executives. Over 80% of the respondents indicated that they wanted to use social media to build their brand while over half indicated it was for networking opportunities. Regardless of your needs, you can see that through planning and organizing your thoughts, you can build a strategy that can be integrated with your other marketing channels and help accomplish your objectives, whether it’s research, business development, networking or simply generating awareness about your company.

The message here: don’t operate things in a silo. Social media is nothing special that necessitates it being separated from the rest of your communications channel. Plan for social media like you do your other marketing campaigns and you’ll reap all the rewards from it.

VUDU is having a big week.  Hot on the announcement of their new partnership with Entone, VUDU is announcing a more industry-focused relationship with chip maker Zoran.  In Q2 2010, Zoran will offer a reference design of their SupraHD processor that integrates VUDU Apps, including the VUDU Streaming Movie Service.

Zoran, a publicly traded company, is one of the largest chip makers in the world, and has chipsets in all kinds of different consumer electronics devices the world over, from manufacturers of all shapes and sizes.  This deal makes it easier than ever for manufacturers of HDTVs, Blu-ray players, and other home theater devices who use Zoran chips to distribute VUDU to their customers.

A number of press outlets have picked up the news, and we’re maintaining  a list of the coverage below.

• MSN Money
• CNN Money
• NewTeeVee
• TWICE
• Yahoo! Finance
• Crunchgear