Crazy 3D Avatars From Gizmoz
Michael Arrington
72 comments »
I first met Eyal Gever, the founder of Gizmoz, at the Israeli Web Tour conference in Palo Alto a couple of months ago. Later that day I saw Eyal again, at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. This time he was giving a demo (in the middle of a hallway) to a group of Fox Interactive folks, including their M&A team. I sat in on the demo, which went on for half an hour or more as the Fox people asked question after question.
Here’s why they were intrigued. Gizmoz has a Flash-based 3D avatar product that is made from a single picture of a person plus their recorded voice. See Eyal’s MySpace page which has an embedded Gizmoz and you’ll understand why this blows away what SitePal and others are doing in this space.
Users start by uploading a picture of themselves or their pet. Gizmoz turns the picture into a 3D model (see image to right), and the avatar can then be customized with a body, clothes, effects (scars, tattoos, etc.) and backgrounds. You then record a message and sound effects, and your avatar is created. The end result has a moving mouth and facial expressions while you talk, and the effect is quite stunning. Eyal calls it “bringing Pixar to the people.”
Here are a couple of videos they made with my picture - see here and here. I’d embed these but they auto-play and people would not be happy. Also, sorry for the lame audio, this was done in the hallway at Web 2.0 while I was surrounded by the Fox team. But I want to show what Gizmoz can do based on a couple of minutes of setup.
The personalized avatar product is still in private beta. The existing product on the site requires the use of a library face, but can be customized and a personal voice can be added. These avatars can be embedded in websites, and Gizmoz also has a downloadable application that adds these avatars to all major instant messaging services.
MySpacers are going to go absolutely nuts over this. Lots of Screenshots below.
Wow, mash this up with a chat app that does text-to-speech and you’d have something funny too. speaking of which, what happened to 3bubbles, i havent been able to get to their page in a while
Cool looking product but my question is how are they going to make money on this? I have had loads of ideas for cool widgets for the likes of my space but I can’t work out how they would make money? there is only so much on site adverts can do and if you create something that lives in another site most people are not going to hit your own site.
thinking about I guess they could include branded items for people to dress their avatar up in. I.E a pair of Nikes trainers, Levi Jeans etc
Or they could charge users directly, as Mike said, you can imagine myspace users and teens going crazy over this, if their friend has it, they’ll want it too.
No Wait - Title Change Suggestion
Gizmoz: The YouTube of Animations
This is about as Web 2.0 as it gets for 2006
Which brings another idea for a topic
Taking each year from 2003 onward, and chosing the WEB 2.0 of the YEAR
SecondLife avatar. This would bring the opportunities to conduct real business in virtual reality one step closer to, well, real reality. And why stop at chat? Why not stream audio with VOIP?
Thats awesome! Ha, theres all sorts of fun little apps out now - it sure seems like the type of thing that could be seeded in myspace and take off virally.
Darren - In addition to what you what you were saying about companies buying product placement, and tying in nicely with myspace would be bling jewellery and other luxury items that actually have to be bought by the user. So anyone can create a free virtual person/avatar/character, but only the true players get the bling look
Large numbers of Myspacers would lap that up!
Crazy avatars to go with crazy names…and crazy people (thats why I chose Jollyjo - pretty sober)
“Cool looking product but my question is how are they going to make money on this? I have had loads of ideas for cool widgets for the likes of my space but I can’t work out how they would make money? there is only so much on site adverts can do and if you create something that lives in another site most people are not going to hit your own site. ” - Mfn
There will always be a demand…bear in mind that companies like Google are so big and so profitable that added features like this wont necessarily be a huge spend in the grand scheme of things but will provide added utility for online surfers.
http://www.jollyjo.org
Good to see Gizmoz are back. They tried something similar back in 1999 under a different name (can’t remember ist) but they were ahead of their time and it didn’t work out.
Good luck Eyal.
I’ve seen a 3D service. You give one picture,say your gf’s or your baby’s photo, they make a 3D sculpture, which costs around $40. Pretty cool.
Tech Tutorials: http://www.hotcoding.com
It does mash up with chat apps.
It does text-to-speech
It’s not perfect yet, but it works.
oohh,
and it does stream audio with VOIP, Chris.
http://www.gizmoz.com/premium/skype
You know we fancy spectacular stuff here at Brains4All. We’re always peeking around the corners of technology to see what the future has in store for us. We’d love to hear your thoughts about how technology like this might be applied for other things then entertainment.
stream audio with VOIP? That’s pretty cool
List your business for free at
http://www.whatshottoday.com
Let me take a moment to defend the flat avatars of the world… SitePal (which, btw, isn’t a consumer product, it is an SMB product… so not sure why you picked us out), WeeMees, Zwinkys, and the non-speaking 3D folks at Meez. It’s not entirely clear to me that the fanciest visual technology wins in the avatar space. In fact, so far, that’s been quite the opposite. Zwinkys, for example, have two million users (as many as Second Life’s “registered” number) and while their avatars might look plain, they’ve struck a chord with a certain demo. Look at the traffic on Stardoll as well…. zero tech, tons of pageviews.
Plus, 3D photo conversion, while something that everyone will probably attempt at some point, suffers from the “Uncanny Valley” concept. People like avatars specifically because they’re not real looking and they don’t have that expectation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley
Often times, the more real looking they are, the more people think they are “creepy”. A lot of people think my custom Oddcast avatar is slightly creepy b/c it looks just like me, while they really like the little bald guy on my MySpace. (www.myspace.com/ceonyc) I mean, no one ever looks at a WeeMee and says, “Oh that’s not real enough.. doesn’t look like me at all.” Its simple to create, looks cute, has lots of accessories.
Obviously, I’m biased, but I think the Meez, WeeMee, and Zwinkys all have a better sense about what the mainstream MySpace user wants and they are proving it with their traction.
I remember Eyal’s stuff from late 90′.
What i see here is a vision coming true, the MySpace thing is blowing.
Good luck Eyal, i hope there’s a deal waiting for u..
This certainly is going to be popular! Even like a mobile/portable version of SecondLife.
Dan Yes I remember as well
Eyal had invented some of the coolest most creative online multimedia technologies and products I had seen in the 90. He developed one of the first virtual world back in 95 with his company ZAPA.
He has been working on Gizmoz Talking Headz for 3 years with his team and it is wonderful to see what they had done.
Looks promising.
Well, this all avatar thing is a bit stupid.
Not for me anyway, I’m way past that age, although the MySpace flash movie you linked here is quite impressive.
Other than doing something which is really content related i can’t see
why anybody would want some weird head talking on his home page.
Ok dude..that’s hot.
i love it.
-;
Re comment 15 from Chalie, I actually did look at other Avatar companies that you mentioned and man really, it is not comparable. Gizmoz is much more then an Avatar. It is so expressive and really like they said: “bringing Pixar to the people”. It is the first time I see a UGC platform that has such a potential for story telling. I am amazed form the quality and the simplicity of the Gizmoz service and the results. Users can start doing some amazing contextual current affairs content with it.
Have you seen their Borat?
http://www.gizmoz.com/create?uid=1&cid=10046
this is real time satirical UGC!
Windows video format used for playback doesn’t seem to work with a proxy, which knocks out it’s use by college students. If they implement flash video this could be a great if cheesy addition to social networking pages. But to agree with a couple of the comments above, the real money’s in metaverse / second life / in game avatars. Maybe they should start looking for a deal with one of the major game software publishers, or a console manufacturer directly (MS is currently missing a killer app for the 360’s camera add on), given the popularity of the extremely limited Mii functionality in Nintendo’s Wii, such a product - aimed at creating an expressive caricatures or life like in game characters, could be a huge hit.
I mean, it really isn’t comparable, to Zwinkys, meez, WeeMee etc..
I’ve been using all of them (just out of curiosity folks) and there is not much to do with, that Gizmo thing is actually a real content platform that saves you a lot of maya time (http://usa.autodesk.com/) just see how expressive is bush and 50cent characters on their site and realize what a potential it got.
The first time i actually bumped into gizmoz was on you tube, there are hilarious videos done with gizmoz that has been published there, i actually saw at leas 4 vids hitting top first page on most viewed..
So, I’m not sure it can be compared to the rest of the avatars, other than crazy talk maybe…
Pretty amazing that they could come out with such cool stuff
I saw on Gizmoz.com that they just launched with Skype an amazing plugin
I just tested it and it is so much fun
see this video demo:
http://www.gizmoz.com/premium/skype
Wow, this is very cool!
Mike, when you write: “Later that day I say Eyal again, at the Web 2.0 Summit…” I think you meant to say “I saw” instead of “I say”
No big deal, just a smal typo.
Congrats to Mr. Gever for his technological achievement. But I’ve got a bone to pick — why include a mass murderer (bin Laden) and a Hitler-wannabe (Ahmadinejad, the current Iranian president) in your “Headz” collection? The analogy would be for a U. S.-based company to provide the likeness of Tim McVeigh and David Duke as avatars.
Woody Allen said (I’m paraphrasing), “Humor has a tendency to trivialize serious issues.” Holocaust denial is a solemn issue, and an unrepentant Holocaust denier should not be given the limelight he craves. I fear that the supporters of bin Laden and the Iranian president enjoy these “humorous avatars” much more than those of us who think these guys simply do not deserve to exist in the first place.
i’m liking what i see so far…my first time seeing anything like it….must of cost a fortune to develop such a product…but what do I know …im just a fashion designer….but this could make money by having the avatars wearing branded products I guess
That’s freakin’ awesome!
As a myspace junky, I’m a little tired of the condescending terminology that companies try to use to appeal to young folk. Gizmoz? Gagz? Headz? I looked at their site for five minutes and still can’t really tell what “gagz” are. Just videos? Why not just call them “videos” or “animations”?
jamie: It’s a way of branding it that appeals to their core demographic which is going to be teens, pre-teens, etc. Look at all the products aimed at them. They are named this way.
How are they going to make money? Simple. They will be acquired. Inherently, I don’t see how they can make money. Charging money to create a talking head is ridiculous. But given that the technology is not easily reproducible and that this will definitely create a big buzz, I can see social networks fighting over something like this. It has that viral element to it.
I can see how my kids are going to use it starting 2morrow.
Why couldn’t i find a spot to register to that avatar from a photo thing?
The gizmoz site is a bit of a disappointment if compared with the product.
I lost my way…
Why should somebody pay for it?
Users won’t, but as many mentioned here, it probably will be acquired.
Some one must want it, i have hared about gizmoz long time ago, and so much r&d efforts, with smart product development should form a valuable brand. Can be used in the next generation of personal and interactive advertising campaigns..
Just like that HP campaign - http://www.personiva.com/hp/index.htm
Wasn’t there a chat room a few years ago that allowed users to post up their own faces over these virtual bodies? This was quite a few years ago but the name escapes me. This is pretty inventive.
Guys, have you ever noticed that Natali is not writing anymore .. almost all of the posts that were written for the past few days are from Mike. What happened to Natali ? She got fired for her poor posts ?
haha..that’s f*ck’n hilarious! excuse my french…this thinghas viral written all over it.
Viral viral viral
This is so cool!
I’ve bumped into that one, a Paris Hilton mock:
http://www.gizmoz.com/video/30.....isneedsyou
“please, some one help me, i’m reach”
That’s really funny
How do you make money? Like someone said above product placement. When you create your gizmoz would you like to add Gap Jeans? Now your gizmoz are placed on myspace. 2 days later you get the gizmoz newsletetr checkout the cool new Shockz from Nike add them to your gizmoz now.
It goes on and on… Huge money from big brands!
How much did this company pay TechCrunch to have the top post all day long?
I’m not so sure about accessories, but a quick use of their Skype 3 plug-in,
shows that they suppose to enable users sending clips and avatars via mobile. In general mobile is a huge future revenue generator for many internet companies.
This thing is perfect for that media (mobile phones)
this is where I think the money is.
This is seriously cool….
It took me a while to track that one out of the link
you left to Eyal’s MySpace profile, that’s one of his friends (?).
http://www.myspace.com/114442884
If that’s where it’s going,
The money should come directly from Murdoch’s pocket.
He should buy that company for his grand child,
So he can have something really cool to play with.
The 2nd one (talking avatar) is the best. You should put it permanently on your site.
This is awesome. I can imagine selling this directly to clients to use in their site for customer service and help. I know its lame but people do it and spend some bucks on it thinking that there site will be more personal now (im thinking of realtors here).
The cool factor is awesome, there are mainstream uses, this should work for these guys. Good Luck.
Charlie’s comment is right on point.
The market isn’t demanding realistic 3D graphics. If you just look at the stats of what is working and what isn’t - the “fun” whimsical 2D avatars are kicking the 3D avatars’ asses.
Damn that’s a cool product. I’ll try it out right now!
Gizmos-Blah - it’s not just the 3D aspect. It’s just cool. The facial expressions are awesome, and I haven’t seen anything like it. Plus, they create these in real time. There’s some cool technology behind this.
WOW this application is really kool. The type of backend servers required to power this application must be cutting edge, I deal day in and day out with users who do 3d rendering which can take hours at times. I love seeing new technology at work.
This is cool but I have to say that if you are running an ecommerce site you need to be very careful because avatars can hurt your business. I tried out sitepal because I thought it was cool. The first week with the avatar business was as usual but then everything went downhill. People didn’t want to go to my site during work hours because they didn’t want their boss to hear the avatar go off. Over a three week period I tried everything (turned the sound off) and my sales went way down. So, the following week I cut ties with sitepal and may sales went up again. Sitepal cost me about $19K in lost revenue during that 3 week period. I also have a friend who tried sitepal and he also lost revenue while testing out sitepal.
For business, I recommend you stay away from sitepal. For pleasure, I say go with Gizmoz! They seem to have some sick technology. I’ll be watching these guys for pleasure of course.
Sorry to resort to stereotypes but I think only a geek can like this concept. A short video clip with the real you and with your own voice is a much nicer way to showcase yourself on social networking sites like myspace. It’s already been done with YouTube and they’ve already made $1.6 billion on it so this is an idea offers less and is entering the market after its competition’s already won. If the point is to create 3d avatars for people who want to post a cartoon version of themselves then they’ll want something outlandish, cute, sexy, extreme, fun, daring etc. A 3d avator which does a poor job of replicating you as it’s based on a 2d image of you is both unflattering and creepy. Maybe such avatars could be used in a game but I see zero potential on a website. Sorry to be blunt. It’s good technology but its solving the wrong problem right now.
Well, I think any 3-D development is good for the Web - I’m sure it has a lot of good applications beyond fun stuff like this. Hopefully it’ll carry over to the ecommerce space and we’ll finally be able to see what everything really looks like before we buy it
hehe
Love the ‘fro mike.
Pretty nifty. What did you think about The Movies game?
another good site for avatars, avatare in my language, is: http://www.findavatar.com