animoto

Animoto, the app that turns Facebook photos into slideshow videos, added a highlight reel feature today that lets users create videos based on their most popular photos of the year.

The magic behind the highlight reel is Facebook's Open Graph. Animoto pulls the photos and captions from your profile -- these include ones you posted and those you're tagged in -- based on how many times your friends commented or liked them, or how many people were tagged in it. The videos are set to music and can include text.

The result, Animoto CEO Brad Jefferson said, is … Read more

If you look at Ptch's pedigree, you have to take the start-up seriously.

Ptch CEO Ed Leonard was the former chief technology officer of Dreamworks, known for films such as "Shrek" and "Kung Fu Panda," but left to run the start-up, which last week launched an iPhone app that allows users to easily and quickly create minute-long montage videos out of their existing photos and video clips.

The premise sounds familiar, right? In a previous column, I profiled a company with a similar mobile service called Animoto. Vyclone and Viddy offer similar remix video and … Read more

Animoto hopes the holiday spirit will get people in the mood to create video slideshows and montages.

The company today released an app for iOS that lets people take their photos, add a song from the company's database of 500 titles, add subtitles, slap on a theme and background, and quickly create a video that can be viewed or shared with family and friends. The videos are stored in the cloud, so they can be accessed by any device.

The app's dead-simple model, already available on the PC, is designed for those who aren't particularly savvy when … Read more

Think about all that video sitting on your hard drive, all those clips of the kids, the vacations, the graduations, your karaoke parties. Now imagine actually doing something with it.

Enter the Web-based video-editing service Magisto, which today announced its public rollout, along with $5.5 million in a series B funding round led by Horizons Ventures, the private venture firm of Li Ka-shing, the world's 11th richest man.

Li, who has an estimated net worth of $26 billion, is known for making smart early-stage investments in companies like Facebook and Spotify. Magma Venture Partners, an original investor in … Read more

Kodak Gallery users now have one more way of viewing and sharing their photos with the addition of video slideshows powered by Animoto. For those unfamiliar with Animoto, the site/service takes your photos and video clips and edits them together into a single movie using its Cinematic Artificial Intelligence. The best part is that little is required from the user beyond uploading files and picking music, and that's pretty much the same for the Kodak service. … Read more

Valentine's Day is this coming Monday. I tend to forget such things or put them off to the last minute, which makes sites like Animoto pretty great to have around.

Basically, Animoto takes your photos and video clips, edits them together with some music--theirs or yours--and produces a finished video for sharing. A recent site redesign makes the process easier and shortens your "time to video."

I detailed the ins and outs of the site in the slideshow below, but it's really pretty straightforward. Animoto lets you create movies up to 30 seconds long at a … Read more

Music video slideshow tool Animoto is venturing into new territory Tuesday night with an upgraded tool that supports video clips. Alongside photos, users can now upload videos up to 200MB in size, including segments that are in high definition. These exist seamlessly beside the photo content, and get the same Animoto treatment with transparency effects, reflections, and other eye candy.

Unlike the way Animoto handles importing photos from third party sites like Flickr, Facebook, and SmugMug, the same cannot be said for videos. If you want it to grab a video you've already uploaded somewhere else you need to … Read more

Animoto, the DIY-music-video-meets-slideshow tool, has released a new version of its iPhone app that brings it a little closer to its desktop counterpart.

Users of its paid premium service can now create and watch full-length videos right on their phone. Previously, users (both free and paid) were limited to 30-second clips consisting of just 16 shots. The new version allows you to create versions of as many as you want--or at least whatever photos can fit inside the length of the song you've chosen.

Anything you create on the iPhone can now be shared through Animoto.com and vice … Read more

Google announced its "Doodle 4 Google 2009" competition Tuesday. According to the company, all kindergarten through 12th grade U.S. students can design a Google logo based on the theme, "What I wish for the world." Applications will be accepted until March 31 and the winner's doodle will be displayed on Google's homepage on May 21. The winner will receive a $15,000 college scholarship and a $25,000 technology grant for their school. Google will also award a school district $10,000 for the "greatest quality participation." Student drawings will be … Read more