Why are we still creating boring slideshows?
I’m a big fan of new video service, Animoto (http://animoto.com) – an online video application that lets users create their own professionally produced videos using photos and music, masterfully combined by Animoto to produce a unique piece of art. Leveraging Animoto’s own patent-pending technology and high-end motion design, each video is a fully customized orchestration of user-selected images and music. Produced in a widescreen format, Animoto videos have the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer. And because they are completely personalized, the impact is even more inspiring.
Upload photos – select music – out comes your own music video!
Animoto Productions was formed by a group of techies and film/tv producers - including veterans of the entertainment industry that have produced shows for MTV, Comedy Central and ABC.
At the heart of Animoto is its “Cinematic Artificial Intelligence” technology that “thinks like an actual director and editor.” It basically analyzes and combines user-selected images and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills & techniques that are used in television and film. And while I fancy myself a creative photographer – this service blows away my abilities when it comes to compiling the photos and organizing them to music. Not to mention – it’s totally automated (in other words – there is very little room for user error).
I tried out the service earlier this year by creating a video short using some photos of my oldest son’s 9th birthday party. His party had a Hollywood theme, complete with red carpet and the party guests dressed to the nines, so the photos were perfect for a slick video slideshow. I uploaded a dozen pictures, selected a rockin’ tune from the Animoto library, and BAM! — Animoto’s video engine analyzed the photos, set them to music, and spit out a professional looking video featuring my photos. My son thought I was a technology genius when I showed him the finished result. His exact quote was, “Dude. That rocks. I’m a movie star.” You can check out that video sample here: http://animoto.com/play/c6eb0f8f69ecf2974f2816cb938efee5
This week I revisited the service to create this video from some of the photos of the MoPR mini-offsite at the Spa at Caesars’ Palace in Las Vegas during CTIA 2008. Check it out here: http://animoto.com/play/E4CuI0xBOvJYW560oRIcWw
Part of what’s fun with Animoto is seeing how it produces fully-customized videos depending on what music you choose. They give you the choice of pulling songs from your personal music library or using one of the songs from their library – so the options are unlimited. Try a mellow song. Then remix your video using a more upbeat song. You’ll get two very different productions. In my personal tests of the service I did find that I preferred the use of horizontal photos to vertically-oriented photos. Given the widescreen format, the horizontal pictures just look better.
If creating the professional looking video with so little user effort isn’t impressive enough on its own, Animoto takes it a step further, allowing users to post the videos to a number of social networking sites, YouTube or even their own blogs or websites using the provided code and simple instructions.
Posting your new video to Facebook from the Animoto site is literally two clicks. And speaking of Facebook, Animoto has a neat Facebook application you can download from the link at the bottom of their homepage: www.Animoto.com, or from inside Facebook in the video application section. With the Animoto Facebook app you can automatically create videos from the photos you have saved in your Facebook albums. The Facebook application has all of the same functionality that you have from the Animoto site, so for those of you who are managing your photos and sharing them using Facebook, this is a great solution for you.
I noticed this week that Animoto is presenting at one of MoPR’s favorite conferences – Under the Radar. Animoto will be participating in Under the Radar’s Social Media and Entertainment themed event June 3rd in Mountain View, CA. I’m going to stick my neck out with a prediction that Animoto wins one of the coveted judges’ choice or audience choice awards at the event (perhaps even both). I know if I was in the voting audience, they would have a very strong chance of getting my vote. The other companies in their category best bring their A-Game!
I think there is a natural progression for the Animoto application to move to the mobile platform; especially with the prevalence of mobile phones with high-quality cameras. I would love to see the company work with Apple to add the app to the iPhone platform. Imagine taking pictures with the iPhone camera, then having the option in the ‘save as’ list to tag the photos for Animoto video creation. Then from the iPhone screen you could open Animoto, select which pictures you wanted included in your new video, pick a song from your iTunes library on your phone, name it, and hit “create my video.” Your videos could be stored on the iPhone, sent automatically to your blog and/or social networking profile pages, or emailed to friends to share.
With the popularity of user generated content sites soaring, Animoto should look to partner with some of the video sites and popular events to showcase user created videos made up of user photos from a particular event. For example, conferences could offer a page showing all of the videos created by users with conference photos. High schools and colleges could add pages to their websites with videos created by students, and sports teams could show off their talents by showcasing collections of videos made up of action shots of athletes in motion promoting the team.
Animoto’s software works flawlessly, is ultra simple to use, and provides real value. The free service is perfect for the casual user and the professional service – which lets you create unlimited full-length videos that you can download and save to your own computer – is a bargain and worth every cent of the $30 annual fee.
BONUS: If you are ready to give the service a try for yourself, here is a special reader discount code that will save you $5 off of the annual service fee: klyrtgvh
July 26th, 2008 at 3:13 am
A friend on Facebook tagged me with a Animoto video, I was really impressed with the quality and how it turned out.
Later in the day I was disappointed to find out that Animoto radomly picked some of my pictures and sent out announcements to various friends who were tagged in those pictures of MY video, which I was unaware of, did not produce nor approve of.
Nice product, but after Beacon, where are the privacy controls with this product. The product in itself is great, but not on Facebook. I ended up removing it and apologizing to friends who were tagged in an unwanted video.