Stage Two's blog

Client News: Pogoplug Unveils 2nd Gen Device – Pretty Darn Cool In Pink

KPBrown — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:21:07 +0000

The New Pogoplug!

At a great late night event held in their SF headquarters, Cloud Engines – creators of the ubercool award-winning Pogoplug “multimedia sharing device” unveiled the next step in their Pogoplug product evolution (see picture).

A very select group of techgeeks got a very special sneak peek and hands-on with the new Pogoplug, which boasts 4 USB ports (a big crowd pleaser), very cool new design, and a bunch of new features:

Automatic sync with your music, movies, photos…really any folder you want
Bulk uploading
Improved data display for media – cover art, albums, genre, artists for music, timeline for photos
Super easy and cool looking drag and drop slideshows
Streaming video from my.pogoplug.com in just about any format – even stream to your iPhone
Improved address book functions, incorporating Myspace and Facebook friends for easier sharing
Global search across all Pogoplugs and drives – never forget which drive that file is sitting on. Just hit the search button

The Pogoplug has had an incredible year after just launching at CES in January, earning huge accolades and a very dedicated community of followers (check out www.pogoplugged.com). We’re thrilled that the second generation already seems to have captured the imaginations of many in the tech world just a few hours after its release. Check out some of the great client coverage below:

(more to be added as they come in)

Client News: BOKU announcing 12 major partnerships at once

David — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:06:22 +0000

BOKU has a big announcement today, which includes 12 major partnerships with some of the biggest names in free-to-play and social / casual gaming. BOKU offers a direct mobile payments system for virtual goods. Want some digital alfalfa for your virtual horses in Barn Buddy on Facebook? BOKU lets you pay for it with your mobile phone.

The new partnerships account for more than 200 million (yup, million) new customers with access to BOKU to pay by mobile for their virtual goods. BOKU is a global outfit with offices in the US, South America, the UK and Singapore. Their release went out on the wire at 9AM PST today – the full list of new partnerships are available there.

BOKU also announced the 3rd generation of their user experience today, which includes some great features to simplify and streamline customer checkout – the ability to instantly differentiate between a landline and mobile number is one example. Innovations like this make life simpler for the end consumer, and nncrease conversion for their customers, and making life better and more profitable is what being in business is all about – well done BOKU!

Several outlets picked up the news this morning, the list of publications covering the news is below. We’ll update the list as we see articles appear.

Client News: Clicker is live and ready for Prime Time

David — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:46:46 +0000

Great news for Clicker today – they’re launching out of Beta, making the service available to anyone in the world. Clicker has also increased their content index dramatically, partly through collaboration with Netflix and Amazon to index all of their video-on-demand content – this brings Clickers content index up to:

400,000+ episodes, from over 7,000 shows
30,000+ films
50,000+ music videos

And, they have some great new feature enhancements thanks to all the Beta feedback they received. This includes features like use of Facebook Connect (to create an account using your FB credentials) and improvement to their amazing playlist function (sort of like a DVR for Internet television to create season passes, and get alerts when new episodes are available, etc.)

We issued a press release via Business Wire this morning. A little later today, founder and CEO Jim Lanzone will be publicly unveiling the site at the NewTeeVee Live 09 event in San Francisco (in our fair city!)

A number of outlets have covered the news this morning. We will update the list of coverage below as we see it come in throughout the day.

Client News: worlds collide as Blake Krikorian joins board of Clicker.com

Jeremy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:23:24 +0000

We had a great announcement this morning from one of our newest clients, Clicker.com. Blake Krikorian, the founder and former CEO of Sling Media (makers of the Slingbox) has agreed to join the board of directors at Clicker. He’s also investing in the company personally. This has special significance to me as Blake was my old boss back in the day.

Blake joins CEO/founder Jim Lanzone (former CEO of Ask.com) on the board, along with Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital and Geoff Yang of Redpoint Ventures. Clicker’s mission is to be the ultimate programming guide for television on the Internet, and they have the team to do it. Of all the thing’s Blake could have done since leaving Sling (and that’s more or less whatever he wanted) he’s decided to make Clicker his first move. That’s a heck of a vote of confidence – not to mention some personal financial investment.

I’ve known Blake since my Mediabolic days when he first saw me demo the “Digital Library” from Pioneer back in 2003. He then hired me as the first employee at Sling Media, where I worked my proverbial tail off to help bring his vision (the Slingbox) to the market. Sling was a huge success, both by making great products and by the eventual acquisition by Echostar in 2007. Now with Blake joining the Clicker team, he is yet in the position where he controls my fate (albeit to a slightly lesser extent than in the past).

The press release went out on the wire this morning. Some of the coverage we’ve gotten is listed below – we’ll update the list as other coverage comes in.

Client News: VUDU Internet Apps are live

David — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:15:39 +0000

VUDU today releases their Internet Apps for the embedded streaming HD movie service. This means that VUDU customers on embedded devices like the Mitsubishi Diamond Unisen HDTVs will be able to use some of the hottest Internet apps around, including Pandora, Flickr, Picasa and others. Owners of the original VUDU box will recognize this as the VUDU Labs feature. Now it has come to VUDU enabled embedded devices.

A few folks have picked up the news, which went out via blog post on the official VUDU blog this morning. We will update the list of coverage below as we see it.

Helping BOKU Stand Out At The Virtual Goods Summit.

Ken Yeung — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:39:09 +0000

Last Friday, Stage Two helped our client, BOKU reach out to its fellow industry professionals through some creative guerrilla marketing during the Virtual Goods Summit in San Francisco at the Westin Hotel. The conference was quite fitting for BOKU since it is focused on being a mobile online payment system designed to make it easy for people to “pay for digital goods and social experiences” across the Internet.

The issue that BOKU had was that it needed to draw some attention to its product even though it was a sponsor but didn’t have a booth on site. Stage Two was tasked with coming up with a quick solution that was easy to implement and could generate some positive publicity. After mulling through several options internally, including the possibility of holding a contest, conducting live interviews or utilizing Twitter, our team decided that the best way was to keep it a little simpler.

At the Virtual Goods Summit, each attendee was given a pin to wear and the ones that wore them the most creatively & were spotted by the BOKU team were awarded one of two prizes. Some received a working remote-controlled helicopter with the BOKU logo while others were given embroidered BOKU track jackets. The Stage Two team rolled into action by photographing and video recording the recipients playing with the “BOKU-copter” – which was also posted on the BOKU blog for additional promotion.

You can view some of the photos taken from the Virtual Goods Summit on the BOKU blog or their Flickr page. Additionally, videos are also on their official YouTube channel as well.

Client News: EnCorps Begins Recruiting Great Minds for 2010

msullivan — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:59:34 +0000

Stage Two is proud to help promote the 2010 recruiting season of EnCorps.

EnCorps is a San Francisco based non-profit that recruits retiring engineers, scientists and technology experts to become math and science teachers in California’s under-resourced public schools state wide. Today they begin recruiting great minds to begin teaching as soon as the fall of 2010.

With math science test scores faltering in a state that is known for technological innovation, EnCorps taps the knowledge of experienced math and science professionals to teach a new generation. In 2009, EnCorps attracted over 1,100 applicants and recruited over 100 math and science professionals. The organization plans to recruit 200 new teachers for fall of 2010.

Doing outreach for EnCorps we got to know the stories of some of the amazing EnCorps recruits. One such recruit is Sharon White. Sharon grew up in Compton California, a notoriously rough Los Angeles neighborhood. After graduating college, she went on to work for Boeing for thirty years in a variety of fields including finance and engineering. As she headed towards retirement, Sharon realized she wanted to leave a positive legacy in her neighborhood. She knew her success was because of those who had supported and encouraged her when she was young and she wanted to “pay forward” her gratitude. Sharon enrolled in EnCorps and is now a full time Math teacher at Locke High School in LA.

EnCorps recruits have many stories like this to tell. Some are teachers. Some on the path to become teachers all have encouraged by EnCorps to give back to their communities.
If you or someone you know has been thinking about teaching, check out the EnCorps site.

Full disclosure: EnCorps is a not-for-profit organization and a pro bono client of Stage Two.

Now Hiring: Office Manager/Admin++

Jeremy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:09:17 +0000

Stage Two Consulting, a self-proclaimed top-notch marketing agency in San Francisco, is in need of a diamond in the rough to join our team as a combination office manager/admin and double-junior-level marketing associate. The job will be roughly a 60/40 split between office-related tasks and some hands-on entry level marketing work. This is a great position for someone new to the job market who is organized and detail-oriented and capable of helping make a small office run better, and at the same time is interested in learning about marketing.

Qualifications:

Fast learner: you need to be able to take direction on something once, then repeat it again ever after
Self starter: some projects will be “high level” – we’re counting on you to figure out some of the details
Organized: you must be able to juggle many simultaneous projects, without letting a ball drop at any time
Communicator: you should be able to talk to us, our clients, our guests, our friends, our family, strangers walking down the street, people on the bus, etc
Detail-oriented: seriously, the little things are the ones that do matter & we care a lot about them.

Brownie points to gamers, bloggers, pop culture geeks (extra credit given for the subtle use of Arrested Development quotes)

Responsibilities:

Organizing lots of things – we have tons of documents (digital, not the paper stuff) that need to be better organized
Research – whether it’s poring through research reports or lots of Googling, we’ll need you to be able to find things out on the Internets
Basic typical office stuff – filing, copying, answering the phone, operating the coffee grinder, playing lead vocals on Rock Band, etc
Attend events – whether its our own clients or just industry events, you will be expected to attend some industry/networking activities (these typically occur in the evening, no travel will be required)

Details:

Full-time job based in our office
Compensation is $22-$28K plus benefits (possibly higher if you can make the case for it!)

Our office is in the amazing Jackson Square district of San Francisco. We are close to several MUNI stops, great restaurants/bars, and fine entertainment establishments. If you’re interested, email us (yes, you’ll want to edit that email address):

a link to an online resume (or Word doc if needed)
a short bio
why you think this is a perfect fit for you (we recommend you do not send us the same cover letter you use everywhere else)
which of our clients excites you the most, and why

Any emails without all of the above will be ignored, and probably marked as spam. Feel free to let us know if you have any questions. Otherwise, we look forward to hearing from you. If you read nothing else (you won’t get the job, but…) be sure to at least read this and this.

PLEASE NOTE: We are now in the process of screening applicants, and will no longer be accepting new resumes (though we may have some internships open in the late Fall if you’d like to get in touch for that). Thank you for your interest!

Client News: Redux Gets Even More Addictive – Twitter and Facebook Feed Importing Live!

KPBrown — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:01:24 +0000

Stage Two’s productivity is in serious jeopardy here, as one of our favorite office addictions – Redux – announced today that they have enabled Facebook and Twitter feed importing, weeding through the boring status updates and bit.ly links and bringing those feeds to life right in Redux. Redux has always been a great resource for finding the best stuff on the web, whether it is great Arrested Development clips (”Her?”), One Hit Wonder music videos, funny cat pics, or links to great new sites.

Now, with Twitter and Facebook importing, Redux has become a real-time, one-stop-shop for all the entertainment shared by our friends from all over the web. These feeds are a big leap forward for Redux and a huge leap backwards for the working world.

Check out some of the coverage from the announcement (updated as it comes in):

The Age of Complex Marketing

msullivan — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:00:18 +0000

It’s no secret that over the last fifteen years or so, marketing has become increasingly complicated as more and more channels and levels of interaction have been introduced by the Internet. In fact, though the basic backbone of principles for reaching customers has remained, marketing itself has evolved into an entirely different, more intelligent, more demanding beast than it was a mere 20 years ago.

Marketing professionals now have more to do than they ever did before, more frequently, and with less preparation time. The upside is that marketers can now engage with customers much more directly and on a wider scale, but this new power comes at the expense of time, energy and requires a supreme understanding of each new nuanced tool the Internet provides.

20 years ago if you wanted to keep your brand current and in the minds of your customers you:

Had a billboard
Updated your brochure only when your product changed (which wasn’t very often)
Had print, radio and TV spots that could last for months or even years.
If you were really adventurous you sent out a newsletter every few months.

10 years ago you:

Had a website that functioned statically, much like an online billboard with a bit more information about your company.
Had to consider how much online vs print exposure you should have
Sent out email as well as paper newsletters
Faxed stuff (maybe – we’re still not sure about this whole “fax” thing)

5 years ago you:

Started (or considered) a blog to go along with your website and started updating once every few days.
Listed yourself on Yelp/Craigslist/LinkedIN/etc
Began looking into SEO and wondered if social networking sites could help you get the word out about your product.
Oh, and you didn’t get to stop sending out newsletters or advertising in the paper or having a billboard, you still had to worry about all those things too. But definitely no more faxing.

Today you must:

Manage a Facebook page along with perhaps several other profiles, all the while wondering if there is a better way to leverage these sites
Update your blog regularly with compelling content as well as immediately respond to news in your industry that affects your consumers
Post on Twitter about that latest blog entry and all the news about your product, and gain a Twitter following and monitor Twitter for mentions of your brand
Keep up on SEO, optimize SEM
Send that newsletter and analyze the engagement it yields
Get that iPhone app up
Monitor your Google alerts
Make that widget…
and you can’t forget about you Yelp reputation and all your traditional advertising.

But beyond the sheer amount of work required to keep up with all these new channels and platforms, there are marketing challenges that occur in the dynamic of the information age. For instance, how do you stand out from all the noise? How do you compete with so much other information, some of it from your competitors, for user attention? Consumers today see more advertisements, receive more messages, juggle so much more information than they ever have before. This kind of environment demands that your product the memorable, sticky and relevant or it will be lost to the ever flowing current of noise.

Also, not all engagement with your target is equal. How do you determine the value of engagement in the interactive space? For some companies, having aFacebook page with a hundred fans measures a high level of engagement with the brand. For others this a formality at best. The same questions arise from all other social media environments. What is the value of a follower on Twitter? Or the power of a positive tweet by satisfied customer? How much interaction with an app is enough to make a lasting impression?

All the free tools the Internet offers do not create a strategy, an experienced marketing professional does. All the different types of engagement does not bring you a string of customers, but learning from that engagement can. Blogging does not create an audience, but positioning and messaging can. Now more than ever, companies need a team of professionals that can guide them through the crowded media landscape and make sure they stand out.