Here are 5 interesting online marketing and social media stories, with a little of my own commentary about the content.

Today, a film incentives bill passed in Texas to lure movie and television producers back to the state just waiting on Governor Perry’s signature). In honor of this great business decision for Texas, here are the Top 5 Film and Television Industry news of the day, discovered by OneSpot, curated for you.

Last week, Robert Thomson, editor of the Wall Street Journal stated that companies aggregating mainstream media content without paying a fee are the “parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet.” While not everyone at major news sites echo this sentiment, it is understandable to want revenue for original content and for others to not profit on infringing content.

Alan Murray, executive editor of The Wall Street Journal Online, and a good friend to OneSpot, came up with 5 tips on charging for content online. I recommend watching the interview and using the summary tips and commentary below the video as a cheat sheet for your own online business. Below are a few of our favorites:

If you are reporting on a breaking news story, it is virtually impossible to be the exclusive online source for that content. Someone else will report on it, even if you have an “exclusive” deal. If you do not offer the story for free, someone else will and possibly for a lower quality than your original. So why not offer the best of the best and keep the traffic yourself?

Like I previously mentioned, if you provide the best of the best of the popular stories, then people will find your site. If your coverage is great, then people will come back to your site for other popular stories. There is brand preference for papers, even online. By making your popular content available for free, even if only initially until it is archived, people will find your story and likely stick around for more.

Stay tuned to this blog as we provide our take on the “Newspapers vs. Content Aggregators” feud and follow us on Twitter as we cover this topic and more every weekday.

The latest issue of “In the Spotlight” releases today.

Our bi-weekly newsletter delivers the best content marketing and social media stories from the Web, curated for you.

This issue includes “10 Reasons Why Your Company Should Not Tweet,” “The Future of Advertising is One Word,” and a special OneSpot Sneak Preview trial code.

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As the UX Designer at OneSpot, I am constantly thinking of new ways for our customers to use the application. With the amount of functionality we have, the possibilities seem to be endless. I have compiled a list of simple examples to showcase the wide array of solutions that OneSpot can offer. Here are just a few that we have come up with:

1) Job Postings - I am in the process of building a blog that discusses design trends and patterns on the web. As part of my site, I wanted to include the latest job postings for UX design from around the web. With OneSpot, I was able to build a very robust and auto-updating widget that not only searches my favorite job sites but also new ones that the system finds. I have found that with a few simple features to block keywords, I can refine my results to get exactly what I want. Click here to view the widget.

2) Find New Blogs to Follow - I’m always looking for new UX and design blogs to read, but Google isn’t the best tool to find all the best ones. OneSpot is an amazing tool for finding the hottest and most popular blogs for any topic. Basically, you enter in the blogs you already know about and it finds literally thousands of related ones for you automatically. Click here for a screenshot.

3) Real Estate Tracker - I find real estate extremely intriguing, especially in today’s turbulent market. As I started the search for my next home, I wanted to leverage OneSpot’s functionality to help me find new listings and news around town. Using feeds from Trulia, Craigslist and other real estate blogs, I was able to create an aggregation tool to help me in my search. Click here to view the widget.

4) Find New Music - Living in Austin has made me appreciate the underground art scene and inspired me to discover new bands. Using OneSpot, I can aggregrate all my favorite music sites to help me find artists that I otherwise wouldn’t have heard of. Click here to view the widget.

5) Track Your Company’s Online Presence - OneSpot uses our own application to track our “chatter” on the web. Using feeds from Twitter, Google, and a few others, we are able to get a good idea of what people are saying about us and how they view the company as a whole. We are also able to help customers who get stuck or frustrated and perhaps turn a bad experience into a good one. Click here to view the widget.

6) Academic or Professional Research - As an Astronomy enthusiast, one of our employees turned the OneSpot app into an effective research tool. Using feeds from high-level universities and trusted websites around the web, anyone is able to track the breaking news and top stories associated with their field of study. Click here to view the widget.