Local television remains a good business, but most station execs agree that tough, uncertain times lie ahead. As we enter 2013, it’s the ideal opportunity for TV station groups to make bold moves to invest in future growth — or just protect the current bottom line. Here’s my crack at the top three:

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We first wrote about Plizy back in October 2011. Over a year ago, the concept of curating all your video in one place was a bit early on for a social TV environment that was still only focused on real-time airings and linear. Today’s TV viewer’s iPad home screen is dominated with video viewing apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus, HBO Go, Showtime Anytime and your provider’s app (if they have a good one). Now Plizy is using your social graph and let you easily navigate to each of these TV video platforms. Read more

Offerpop, describes its servies as a way to “run best-of-breed social campaigns, optimize posts, and get actionable fan data – all from one platform.” This fall Viacom Media Networks’ Logo channel and MTV leveraged their popular apps to help take the already extremely social Ru Paul Drag Race and the final season of Jersey Shore to a new level of social TV success. Read more

This past year, was the year of the image maturing on the social web. From Pinterest to Instagram, to animated GIFs on Tumblr, it’s never been more fun and social to customize and mold photos about your favorite TV shows. Here’s how Yahoo’s IntoNow users are using their “CapIt” feature to turn photos about TV into mini, customized memes. Read more

USA Network is tapping into their fans to help develop the marketing strategy for the seventh season of Psych which will premiere on the network on Wednesday, February 27, at 10/9c. Through December 23rd fans were able to “ visit the Psych Tag iiit app on USANetwork.com or the show Facebook page to submit, review and rank taglines.” Read more

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are back and are taking over multiple platforms as Nickelodeon grows the brand for a new generation of kids (and pizza lovers). To help the Turtles take over multiple screens, Nick tapped Starlight Runner Entertainment a social TV company that was tasked with taking all of the brands assets and painting them in the right way on different platforms. We interviewed CEO Jeff Gomez about their role in the Turtles growth. Read more

At the end of November we pointed out that GetGlue data from Trendrr on Revenge matched up with linear data from Nielsen. GetGlue’s data on scripted shows from December 10-16 reveals a similar trend with the CW’s Arrow. Here are the details.  Read more

In January, Spartacus, a Starz original series, will launch its third and final season “War of the Damned”. Months before the season airs the network launched a detailed and exciting social TV experience for fans called “Battle for Nuceria,” allowing fans to engage with the show and characters through missions and experiences where they can earn points and win prizes. We interviewed Erin Dwyer, Starz Executive Director of Digital Marketing about the details of this impressive social TV experience. Read more

As the web evolves and matures we’ve begun to cover more shows that are not on traditional TV. For example, Battleground and The Yard are two must see shows from 2012, that aired exclusively on Hulu in the US, not a traditional TV network. In May YouTube pitched their brand new TV-like channels to advertisers during the traditional TV upfronts. Now Ashton Kutcher’s Thrash Lab YouTube Channel and Eric Finley are showing off what the future of comedy will look like with “Comment Counselor.” Read more

Dijit Media has continued to push forward as the role of the second screen for TV evolves. In September they launched NextGuide, an app that compliments their original Dijit universal remote app. As the year comes to an end the San Francisco-based company has announced some major updates to both apps.  Read more