Utterz.com, a Maynard based site that I first covered earlier this year and one of the few technology stories that broke on 93south, came back out of stealth today and expanded their product offering to include impulse publishing of both pictures and video in addition to the original voice service. I had a chance to play around with the service this weekend and was impressed with the changes and progress that they have made.

Think of Utterz as Twitter for audio, pics and video. Utterz is a very simple concept where registered users call a pre-set number (712-432-6666) to leave short sound clips (or Utterz) that are automatically posted on the users Utterz profile. With this release, Utterz now allows users to accompany their posted messages with both pictures and video that can be submitted via email or site upload. The pictures and video are automatically matched to the previous voice utter on the website.

The company also followed the advice from my previous post and added a selection of widgets (Ok…I’m sure they were planning on it anyway) that allow you to publish your latest Utterz to your blog or online profiles. Notice my Utterz widget in the sidebar - not much of a set I must admit but I’m not sure if I am the real target.

One of the interesting parts of the overall concept is that it allows a 2-way conversation through a blog-like comment system. Users have the ability to post responses to each message through the website or directly through the phone number. When you call in, the automated attendant will notify you that their are replies waiting for your messages and give you the ability to respond…almost voice texting in a way.

This new “micro-blogging” service still has a few bugs to work out and I will be curious to see how they will handle offensive content even in a community policed format. However, I think that the new feature set combined with the site’s clever branding (a bit refreshing for east coast standards) have the potential to turn Utterz into a very popular service.

RPM Communications, the maker of Utterz and Foonz, also announced a $4 million Series A round of funding led by Morgenthaler Ventures.

Technorati tags: utterz, boston web 2.0, maynard, mobile, technology, sms, video, audio, twitter, start-up, launch

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Chelmsford’s OurStage.com, the site that bills itself as the only 100% democratic competition for emerging music and film, announced today that has come out of beta (do web 2.0 companies ever come out of beta?) and launched a whole new section that will pair it’s top acts with professional artists.

The Ourstage premise is simple. Up-and-coming bands and filmmakers upload their content to the site for users to vote for their favorites. At the end of each month, the top 20 and the top 10 in each channel go head-to-head in special judging channels to determine the winner of that channel. Then a site-wide judging contest is held to determine our Grand Prize winner. The top act from music and file both win a $5K prize.

Traffic has grown steadily since the site launched in beta earlier this year. The site claims that visitors have judged over 1,000,000 “battles” - sorting over 12,000 submissions from best to worst across 24 channels of entertainment. Anyone that has been in a garage band will know that the monetary incentive combined with musician vanity is enough to build traffic from the bands alone. However, the founders of Ourstage hope that their patent-pending judging system that it is designed to almost eliminate cheating will help set the site them aside in a very crowded field.

In addition to coming out of beta the site also announced it’s all new section Artist Access. The new section will take the top-ten acts from both the music sections of the site and provide them with access to top artists including one-on-one meetings and live performance opportunities. These artist, including John Legend, will personally choose the final winner from the top 10 ranked acts in their channel of expertise. The small local start-up has pulled in some decent talent from music side of the house.

From the world of Music:

* John Legend, music entrepreneur and five-time Grammy-winning R&B musician
* Curt Smith of Tears for Fears (love the 80s)
* G. Love (Garrett Dutton) of G. Love and Special Sauce!

From Video & Film:

* David J. Burke, emmy-nominated Director, Writer, & Producer (Animal, Kidnapped andLaw & Order: SVU)
* John Cameron Mitchell, writer, director and star of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
* Chris Gore, writer, filmmaker (recently named one of the 25 Most Influential People in Independent)
* Matt Dentler, producer of the South by Southwest Film Conference & Festival
* Sarah Diamond, director of programming for the Slamdance Film Festival
* Adam Roffman, IFFBoston’s Film Director.

The Artist Access section will also include advice and tips for all aspiring artists who visit OurStage.com. The site will capture the advice in a series of interviews, which will appear regularly on the site Initial interviews already posted include Blonde Redhead, Crystal Method and Kaki King.

Anyone into music or film should check out this interesting local offering.

Technorati tags: ourstage, boston web 2.0, chelmsford, music, videos, online video