From The Guys at Animoto

We absolutely love everything about SmugMug… from their cutting-edge services and impeccable customer service to the transparency and personality that their website boasts. The guys that run that company are awesome and we’ve always considered the quality of their entire user experience and customer-centric approach a huge inspiration for us.  So you can only image how excited we are to announce this partnership and integration here at PhotoPlus in NYC.

SmugMug users can now create Animoto videos from their photos and video clips in their SmugMug accounts, while Animoto users can export their personalized video creations straight to SmugMug for storage, sharing, and reselling.

To create an Animoto video from within SmugMug, you simply click the “Buy” menu from within a gallery and select “Create an Animoto Video.”  You’re then redirected to Animoto.com and placed directly into the video creation process with your SmugMug photos and video clips already loaded. When the video is finished, you open the “Export” menu from Animoto’s video toolbox and select “SmugMug” to export the completed video back to SmugMug.

SmugMug’s CEO Don MacAskill kindly hosted Brad and Robert Scobble over at SmugMug HQ.  Scobble made this great video:

Animoto and SmugMug will be showcasing together in booths #465 and #467 at the PhotoPlus International Conference + Expo in New York City, October 22-24, 2009.

~ by jason on october 24th, 2009.

It’s crazy to think that we launched Animoto for Photography just one year ago at PhotoPlusExpo.

Since then, we’ve attended nearly every national photography convention in the country and even some abroad, got some of the biggest names in the industry declaring their love for us, and managed to roll-out a whole slew of features specifically developed with our Pro-Photography users in mind.

Coming full-circle, we’ll be attending PhotoPlusExpo again this year at our stomping ground, the Javits Center. From Thursday October 22nd through Saturday the 24th, the Animoto crew will be holding down the fort at our PhotoPlusExpo booth. Best of all is… you can get in for free!

For all our tri-state area fans/users/early adopters/newbies, we encourage you to come by our booth and say “hi,” as the entire NYC staff will be taking turns manning our booth. We love meeting our users and hearing your thoughts about your Animoto experiences.  It would be great if you could make it out.

Here is information on how you can snag free entrance to the show.  (Tickets are normally $49!) Enter the VIP code: MOTONYC at this registration form.

We look forward to seeing you at PhotoPlusExpo!

~ by jason on october 19th, 2009.

Thus far in our ad campaign featuring the world’s best professional photographers, we’ve presented the incredibly talented Vicki Taufer and the insanely creative Kevin Kubota. This month, we’re excited to be introducing our next self-portrait from featured photographer #3, David Ziser.

David is an internationally renowned wedding photographer. Extolled by The Dallas Morning News as a “wedding photographer extraordinaire,” David is one of 101 photographers worldwide who hold the highest honor of “Fellow” bestowed by the American Society of Photographers.

Learn how David Ziser routinely does the impossible using Animoto for Photography: http://animoto.com/go/david.

…

Check out the full line-up of Animoto’s featured professional photographers:

Vicki Taufer	Kevin Kubota	David Ziser	#4 coming soon (November)	#5 coming soon (December)
#6 coming soon (January)	#7 coming soon (February)	#8 coming soon (March)	#9 coming soon (April)	#10 coming soon (May)

…

~ by jason on october 8th, 2009.

Chuck D of Public Enemy fame recently said that Sellaband “will completely redefine the way the music business operates,” even going so far as funding Public Enemy’s next album through the site. And who are we to argue with Chuck D?

Ever since our inception, Animoto has always been committed to featuring up and coming independent artists on our site, allowing for their tunes to act as the soundtrack to your videos. As such, it made sense to work with fellow Amazon-funded start-up, Sellaband. This week we have added to our Music Collection songs from Sellaband’s insanely talented roster of artists. The songs are available in both our consumer & commercial collections.

Sellaband’s model is truly unique in that artists put their music up on the site. If 5,000 “believers” donate $10 to get an artist’s album made, the artist gets to head to the studio with some of the industry’s top producers and cut an album. The “believers” in turn not only get a limited edition CD once it’s produced, but are essentially investors in the CD’s sales. They get a cut of the pie once the album starts selling like hot cakes (too many pastry references? I must be hungry….)

Be sure to check out the following artists now featured in our Music Collection:

Angie Arsenault – Singer Songwriter
BulletProof Messenger – Indie Rock
Daniel Ward-Murphy – Singer Songwriter
Francis Rodino – Singer Songwriter
Julia Marcell- Singer Songwriter
Lunic- Indie Rock
Mysti Mayhem – Singer Songwriter
So What – Indie Rock

~ by rebecca on october 8th, 2009.

Congratulations to our ten winners, Kate, Chelsey, Joe, Bill, Mary, Troy, Nicole, Mark, Lisa and Creighton!

From skydives to bachelorette parties, mini-golf outings to vacation recaps, we’ve seen some incredibly fun Animoto videos these past five weeks. We’re inspired by the creativity of our users, particularly now that they’re adding video clips to their pieces.

Watch the winning videos »

And after a long and contentious debate among our judges, we have finally chosen our grand prize winner. Congrats to Creighton H. from West Jordan, Utah! He used Animoto to capture the memories of his college years (with some hilarious video clips!) to share with his friends and family.

Watch Creighton’s video »

We will be flying Creighton and a chosen comrade out for an action-packed weekend in New York City. We’re looking forward to meeting you both here at Animoto HQ.

Thanks again to everyone who entered the contest.

~ by megan on october 6th, 2009.

What a great way to end this contest!  The entries submitted this week were everything we hoped they’d be and more.  Our two winners this week clearly know how to have a good time and make a great Animoto video.  Go ahead, try not to smile when watching these – we dare you.

Miss Kate’s new husband is a lucky man, if Lisa S.’s video of the bachelorette party is any indication.  When was the last time you saw a woman hike up a mountain in a puffy white dress?  Beautiful scenery, beautiful friends… that must have been one fun night.

Our other winner this week, Creighton H. of West Jordan, UT, certainly had an awesome year in college with his friends.  Road trips!  Parties!  Goofy wigs!  We’re glad you didn’t let your schooling get in the way of your education, Creighton.

This was an amazing five weeks, everyone.  Thank you to all of you who submitted your videos!  Be sure to stay tuned as we announce the Grand Prize Winner on Tuesday, October 6 for that trip to New York City, which includes two nights at the SoHo Grand Hotel, and tickets to a show!

Well, we were right – week 4 of the Video Contest really was awesome, and our best one yet It was a really tough choice, as this week’s finalists both showcased some great, easy ways to jazz up an Animoto video.

Mary N. of Houston, TX submitted a video of her trip to New York City. Check out that opening video clip! Mary didn’t mind sharing her secret to that cool effect: She set the camera up on a hot dog stand as her friends stood still and disappeared one by one. Then, she went into Windows Movie Maker and cut out the footage she didn’t want. A few minutes on Animoto later, Mary had a video worthy of an I Love NY commercial.

Nicole D. of Pleasanton, CA really showed off her creativity with her “Rock and Roll” video. Nicole also shared with us how she got that eye-catching punk-rock look – it was all done in Photoshop with a few simple steps.

That’s one cool third grade teacher!

Next week is the final week, everyone. Send us your best videos and maybe you, too, can see your name up on our Contest Winner Page!

~ by megan on september 29th, 2009.

By popular demand, we’ve cranked out a few more highly requested features:
– Shuffle all your images around in random order with the click of a button
– Select blocks of items by holding down Shift
– Drag multiple items around your workspace
– Easily move images up and down with the help of auto-scrolling

Admittedly, we probably should have got these things done a long time ago. Once you start using these features, you’ll probably be like us and think, “how did I ever use Animoto without these?” Sometimes we’re guilty here of focusing too much on the “big cool stuff” and forgetting to tackle the smaller more obvious things.

Anyway, enjoy!  There’s more where this came from, so stay tuned….

~ by jason on september 24th, 2009.

More than 60 new tracks were added to our commercial music library this week. Among them are tons of instrumental tracks – so many, in fact, that we have a brand new Instrumental Genre.

We hear from a lot of our pro-users that while they will absolutely love a song, the lyrics just don’t quite match the vibe of the video. Well, we’ve got you covered now. The library now has tons of quality songs spanning various genres, none of which have lyrics. Let us know some of your favorites (I’m partial to Floating Lanes by Anomaly).

We’re also happy to say the commercial music library now boasts Grammy & Emmy nominated artists. With the addition of the insanely talented Gunnar Madsen & Peter Himmelman to our Children’s genre, ensuring that no matter the type of video you need to make, you’ll have the perfect commercially licensed song to act as its soundtrack.

If you have any ideas for other genres/types of songs you’d like to see us support, don’t be a stranger!

~ by rebecca on september 23rd, 2009.