I’ve been checking out a lot of new companies and services, but this was the first time I took out my credit card to buy a Pro account within 5 minutes! The service is called Animoto and my prediction is that it’s going to be huge! So I have to share this with you.
Animoto will turn your photos into a video clip that will blow your audience away. Yesterday I’ve made a videoclip for the Bowlr event of last Thursday. You can upload your photos or import them from a third party. Imports from Flickr, Facebook, Smugmug, Photobucket and Picasa are supported by Animoto. After importing your pics you can upload any mp3 file or choose a song from their music store.
Their software will analyze your pics and music and compiles a sweet, sexy and impressive video clip for you.
Check out my first video clip: Chaos @ Bowlr 2008 (feat Lupe Fiasco).
You can try it yourself and make a 30 second clip with a free account, but be aware of the consequences. There’s a big chance you get addicted to the service, grab your credit card, click the ‘I’ll pay you 30 dollars a year’ button and start making clips of your holidays, events, marriages and may be even your pet.
Is it all one big hosanna? Well no, it doesn’t support MP4 files meaning that music bought via iTunes cannot be used in your clips. The interface works fine, but you need to upload your photos every time you want to make a new video. All together this is still my favorite web app of 2008.
WOW! As a Flash Developer I must say I am truly amazed! This is so new, so fresh! :o
Yep, looks incredibly cool. First time I watched that movie I didn’t realize it wasn’t a movie until halfway. Can imagine using this a lot…
This is brilliant stuff. Tried it and thinking of taking an account, you were right!
Looks really really cool, seems like 30 dollars well spent.
Have to say that this is one of the more impressive things I’ve seen lately. Totally see how many people will going to use this.
Another nice thing to mention is that I emailed their CEO on Sunday and got a reply within 30 minutes. It is not only a great product but they also understand how important it is to communicate with your customers. No matter where your customers come from or on what day they are trying to contact you.
This is interesting (more like Splashcast though IMO, however, I still prefer my own application! (naturally.)
http://myplaylist.biz
Their are no hurdles to entry such as paying for accounts, the quality of images are much much higher as they are not compressed into video bit rates, and when played in full-screen-mode the slide show of images is smooth and interesting enabling you to play it all night.
Where as the music video format of flashy transitions is cool for 5 minutes or 6 but I couldn’t see myself using it to relax and enjoy good photography while listening to my favorite bands music all night.
Patrick try Myplaylist and let me know what you think, i’d be most interested.
Slightly biased – Steve
Wow, that’s impressive. FX sometimes a bit too much, but overall really sweet. What I don’t understand is why you still have an Animoto outro after paying 30 bucks. Isn’t that watermark enough?
I’ve been using Animoto since their very first beta and the service is great.
Also, they are really nice guys. The problem with MP4 files is easily solved… just convert it to mp3 straight from iTunes and then get rid of the copy if you don’t need it.
Anyway I agree with those saying that it’s 30 bucks well spent!
@Steven Carroll
I had a look at your site and to be honest I found it significantly different from Animoto in terms of what you can get out of it.
But having images ready to go is a great time saver and perhaps the Animoto guys should think about using Flickr or Facebook to take the pain of uploading stuff off of the users…
IMHO myplaylist.biz needs some usability improvements. I wouldn’t say that it’s particularly user-friendly… I was about to give up when I almost incidentally got how to use it.
By the way, I’m not related in any way with Animoto, just an enthusiastic user who had a few conversations with them over the email! And I don’t even think that one thing is great and the other is rubbish, the whole point is that I found the 2 services pretty different and therefore not much comparable.
@Fabio De Bernardi
Hey that’s great feedback, as the developer it’s very hard to see sometimes what other find difficult to use about the UI.
I would be very pleased if you could drop me a note at colourbleu a t free.fr, or use the form on the about page, with the issues you found using the system.
That would be great to hear,
Best
Steve
@Steve Carroll
Happy to do it. As soon as I have the time I’ll send you my feedback!
Feel free to do the same with my start up! :)
http://www.veedow.com
Patrick, I agree. I was pretty much hooked after creating my first video!
For anyone who has a Business Account with ANIMOTO as well as a Smugmug PRO account, I’ve written a detailed step-by-step tutorial here on how to create an ANIMOTO video for and then convert, upload and embed into your Smugmug site:
http://lookingglassphotography.posterous.com/step-by-step-tutorial-on-creat-0
Hope you find it useful:)