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 Company: Animoto, New York, NY
Entry Submitted By: Atomic PR
Company Description: Animoto is a web application that lets users create MTV-style videos with the click of a button. Users simply choose a song and images and Animoto generates a unique video for them. The post-production techniques the founders used while working for MTV, Comedy Central & ABC are used in Animoto's patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence developed to think like an actual editor and director.
Nomination Category: Products & Product Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best New Product or Service - Media & Entertainment
Nomination Title: Animoto – The End of Slideshows
- Tell the story about this nominated product or service (up to 500 words). Describe its function, features, benefits, and sales to date. You may include hyperlinks to product photos and data sheets. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Animoto is a web application that lets users easily and quickly create
MTV-style, professional-quality videos with just a click of a button. Users
select their photos, pick a song from the site’s extensive music library, and
Animoto takes care of the rest, creating videos with the visual energy of a
music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer. Animoto officially
launched to the public in August 2007, and uses a freemium business model where
it's free to use the service for basic features but premium features, like
creating a full-length video and downloading videos, cost money.
The heart of Animoto is its patent-pending Cinematic A.I. technology that thinks
like an actual director and editor. It analyzes and combines user-selected
images and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills & techniques
that are used in television and film. The technology takes into account every
nuance of a song - the genre, song structure, energy, rhythm, instrumentation,
and vocals. No two videos are the same. Even videos generated with an identical
set of images and music will each have a completely distinct set of motion
design. Videos are produced in widescreen format and can be emailed, downloaded,
and embedded in social network sites like Facebook and MySpace, and shared on
video-sharing sites like YouTube.
Since launch, Animoto has improved its functionally by adding various features.
In December, the company announced Animoto Downloads, the first video download
service of its kind, allowing users to save videos as MP4 video files on Macs or
PCs at no additional cost. Recently, Animoto partnered with YouTube to allow
users to export their full-length Animoto videos directly to YouTube with the
click of a button. To export a full-length Animoto video to YouTube, an Animoto
user clicks the 'Export to YouTube' button below their selected video. After
entering YouTube-specific descriptions and tags and clicking 'Export,' the video
appears on YouTube a few minutes later under the user's profile.
Other recent Animoto announcements include a Facebook application that allows
users to produce a high-impact 30-second music video from their library of
photos, and a Music Submission program that offers a way for bands and artists
to feature and promote their music on Animoto.
In March, Animoto took home the SXSW Web Award in the “Film/TV” category at the
11th annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Web Awards. The awards honor
20 of the top Web developers and designers chosen from hundreds of entries
submitted across the world. Animoto is currently nominated for a Webware 100
Award for best in “Publishing and Photography.”
The founders of Animoto Productions include veterans of the entertainment
industry who have produced shows for MTV, Comedy Central, & ABC. They share a
passion for helping people better share their stories and express themselves
through online media by innovating technologies in the field of video
production. Animoto Productions, founded in August 2006, is based in New York
City with an office in San Francisco.
More information about Animoto can be found here:
http://biz.animoto.com/presskit.html
- List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, product reviews, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Press coverage:
- CNN Video:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2008/03/20/pirillo.tech.segment.cnn
- Wall Street Journal “Buzzwatch,” “Chart Climbers: A Buzz Boost For a New Way
to Share Your Photos,” March 18, 2008:
http://blogs.wsj.com/buzzwatch/2008/03/18/chart-climbers-a-buzz-boost-for-a-
new-way-to-share-your-photos/?mod=googlenews_wsj
- Businessweek, “SXSW: Where Tech Mingles with Music,” March 7, 2008:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2008/tc2008036_351227.htm
- USA Today, “Here’s a cool twist on slideshows,” October 1, 2007:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/2007/10/heres-a-cool-tw.html
- WIRED Blogs, “SXSW: Rocking the Showroom Floor,” March 10, 2008:
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/sxsw-rocking-th.html
- KNTV-TV (NBC) “Tech Now”: http://biz.animoto.com/press/technow/index.html
- TechCrunch, “Animoto Rocks (Automatically Turns Your Photos Into a Music Video
Slide Show),” March 12, 2008:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/12/animoto-rocks-automatically-turns-your-
photos-into-a-music-video-slide-show
- VentureBeat/ Industry Standard, “Slideshow company Animoto makes clever use
of Facebook’s platform,” March 7, 2008:
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/03/07/slideshow-company-animoto-makes
-clever-use-facebook-s-platform
Press Releases:
- Launch Release: http://biz.animoto.com/pressrelease/081407.html
- Animoto Downloads Release: http://biz.animoto.com/pressrelease/121807.html
- SXSW Award Release: http://biz.animoto.com/pressrelease/030908.html
- Facebook Application Release: http://biz.animoto.com/pressrelease/031008.html
- Music Submission Program Release:
http://biz.animoto.com/pressrelease/031108.html
- YouTube Release: http://biz.animoto.com/pressrelease/031208.html
- Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that developed this nominated product or service:
All four co-founders of Animoto went to high school together, and three attended
Dartmouth College together. After pursuing several different types of careers,
Brad Jefferson in enterprise software, Jason Hsiao in production for MTV and
VH1, Stevie Clifton in motion graphics and post-production for ABC, and Tom
Clifton in music, the founders reunited to form Animoto as a passion project in
August, 2006. The website, Animoto.com, was launched a year later in August, 2007.
The founders include:
• Brad Jefferson, CEO
• Jason Hsiao, President
• Stevie Clifton, CTO
• Tom Clifton, Creative Director
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