We are expecting Photobucket and Adobe to jointly announce a new Flash based tool for Photobucket users within the next couple of weeks. The tool will allow users to mash up videos, photos and music clips into a timeline, and add titles, transitions and other effects, and then embedded into blogs, social networks like Myspace, and other sites.
Adobe has been steadily increasing the power of their Flash-based video editing tools. In early 2006, startups like Jumpcut (acquired by Yahoo) and Motionbox launched early platforms for editing video online. More recently, Cuts.com announced even more advanced tools for their upcoming beta.
It’s not clear if the tools being adopted by Photobucket are more advanced than those used by Cuts.com, although the fact that Adobe will be participating in the announcement suggests they are taking this partnership seriously.
Slide, RockYou and the seriously hurting Filmloop all offer users the ability to create simple photo slideshows and show them off using a Flash based widget. Look for them to try to quickly add these new Flash video features as well to avoid losing users to Photobucket.
As silly as all this photo and video uploading and mashing up sounds, it’s popular stuff. Photobucket is a profitable company already, and Slide was rumored to be valued as much as $100 million after their last round of financing, with no revenue to date.
Photobucket already commands third place among video sharing sites (after YouTube and Myspace), after launching the functionality just last April. About 35,000 videos are uploaded to Photobucket daily.
adobe and photobucket, working together – i like the sound of that
you have photobucket’s existing, heavy user base with adobe’s editing/creation well-known pedigree – both are nearly complimentary co.s
if anything is to succeed, this is one of them -
both likable, well-known brands
i just thought that there arent any need anymore for desktop applications, for the consumer apps at least. nowdays, you can have your own office online, your video editor and player online, your phone, your photo editing software
I am intrigued that you have not mentioned filmator.net in this article. You know that Filmator were the first in the world to offer a mashup tool where users can upload video, images and audio, and organize their media to play in a timeline, and this is much more advanced than the simple slide show tools offered by the other big players that you have mentioned in this article. I would have hoped that when an invention has already been developed that this would have been at least as newsworthy as the announcement that PhotoBucket and Adobe are ‘planing’ to get together to develop something which will be a me too copy cat ‘invention’.
For those interested in this market I like to announce some of our own big news as today we have just launched another new feature on Filmator.net were users can watch the Filmations in full scree (if they have the latest free Flash Player). This feature is now live and by clicking on the filmations (right mouse click) you will enjoy them in without a browser and in full screen. We are still fine tuning this function but it is amazing to see. It is the first time that it has been possible to switch off the browser and enjoy media like it was application driven.
I hoping MA that one day you will see fit to include our innovations also on TC.
Regards
MR STEVEN CARROLL designer and director @ Filmator
Suddenly web content creation based on mutlimedia and timelines seems all over the place, that’s why Flash/Adobe have become so relevant.
I guess we shall see Adobe showcasing their Flex platform.
We at TagLoops (one of the 1st offerings to appear in the space) are happy there is an ecosystem developing around this kind of tools
Wohoo!! Now thats what i was waiting for!! Finally adobe going to do it online things up.
@Harry: I would say not suddenly but it was a gradual progress towards everything online.It all depends on demand and competition.
@heri: Agreed.Everything is moving into web.Later in years we might need to store anything on desktops.Just connect and do your job and deploy.
Thanks for the update!!
Fliker is better, faster
@STEVEN CARROLL
Saw Filmator for the first time. I haven’t been able to check it out yet. This new tool from Photobucket is only news because of their size. Filmator as well as others (including us – Photagious) have had capabilities similar to this for a while. We’ve had it for about 6 months now.
Anyways…this is what makes it interesting/difficult/exciting for smaller sites. The mass market doesn’t have room for too many video sites. But there are tons of niche markets that smaller sites need to target to become profitable.
Now…Slide is something I completely don’t understand. a $100 million dollar valuation with little to no revenue? What’s that even mean?
*FWIW – I know what it means…they need to be acquired.
We should expect to see a lot of activity in this area in the near future. The more we get the better the product gets for the end users.
Jaisen
I like your site, it looks like it could compete well in its sector especially given the so-called 100 million competition. BTW Woomp is another site in that sector. However, I think Filmator differs in as much as it allows intelligent control over the timeline and in effect online presentations can be made, as can documentaries. This is where Filmator is different from the likes of those mentioned thus far and it sounds like Adobe and PhotoBucket are going to roll out some think that also has control over the timeline. I think this would be a first in the way of ‘direct competition’ for us. Given our service is free for non commercial use, I look forward to poaching their customers, just like they poached our idea. Steve
Note for the photagious guys – apart from a goofy name, forcing people to enter their credit card to start a trial just doesn’t work these days – even smugmug now gives free trials without a credit card…
photobucket is a little late to the party with this app… as noted motion box, cuts, jumpcut, vidavee and eyespot (my favorite) are already in play. The cool thing about eyespot is its all ajax….
@Mik
We’re receiving feedback on that. We recently began asking for a credit card to sign up for the trial but are considering changing that part of the sign up process. Thanks for the feedback.
oh Boy!!
i wanted to do UWAYCOOLr based on Flash – cuz i see 99% of whass out there in Photo Slideshows is boring crap*
i’ll be excited to see what they’ve cooked up!!
Cheers! Billy
)
What I think it needs is the control issue you get with SplashCast — let me mash things up, let people embed it, but then allow the creator to continue to have control over the widget, to update the content and present what’s new. The person taking it to embed could decide if they want the channel or just the fixed piece. I would also say, as people who do professional video, there is a LONG way to go before you get rid of the need for desktop apps.
I think Flickr has a sexier interface but photobucket had been on my radar before Flickr and I’ve just never migrated off it from there. I can say that they’ve made all kinds of cool new changes to their site – I like them alot! Like the links automatically copy for you to post elsewhere when you click on them, it’s a lot better with the upload times, etc.
Good for them – nice to see them making moves like this in the market.
Found this one in the forum, goodwidgets.com. They have some nice looking photo widgets! Some of the best I’ve seen really even compared to Slide or Rock You. Of course if you are a myspacer that’s probably not really a concern.
the only thing i know about photobucket is that every image i ever see used from the site is a “bandwidth exceeded” image… turns me off from their service immediately.
Flickr guys, are you sleeping?? Yeah you have jumpcut under the umbrella of Yahoo but then there is stupid “import” type integration. Import takes years.
Recently I signed up for Flickr since they have very nice interface and all my yahoo contacts were there. But since then I am feeling that Flickr lacks some of the very popular features like :
1. No direct integration with popular Blogging tools.
2. No slide show tool (they have very basic badge tool which is sooooo tiny).
3. No way to share your favorites.
and lots more.
They need to give us an upgrade. Long time no activity.
Oh Yes, they have a limit of 4cmX4cm on your avatar. (Really stupid).
I have the feeling new Flash based tool will be the VLOG IT! program that Adobe recently aquired, but possibly re-named for Photobucket. Just a thought
Nice – TC is at 190,000 readers today. Wonder if it’ll break 200,000? Although it’s hard to compete with Anna Nicole Smith
Cool, can’t wait to see what comes out of this one.
With so many video editing software coming up, all I think about is how will MPAA and other copyright enforcers be able to control anything. People will be creative in mixing copyrighted content with their own content etc. etc.
I know that web 2.0 is not about building companies that earn money, it’s about cashing out. I am not going to discuss the prospects of this mentality. Still there might be some people here interested in making profitable companies, and not partying hoping that they are building the next youtube.
I happen to run a company that is not on techcrunch web 2.0 radar, and we are using widgets. We have more widgets out than many VC funded companies that have been featured on Techcrunch (although less than slide or photobucket). This is my background info, to emphasize that I know what I am about to say.
Our traffic is very expensive, but ads do not cover it. This is because when you have widgets, your bandwidth is NOT due to you pageviews, it is a collateral damage to you: the traffic is not yours, but you are paying for it. Users open myspace pages with your widget, and in 80% of the cases they do not even notice or do not interact with your widget, but you are still paying for the bandwidth. This is not so for a destination site, where at least if you pay for bandwidth, it means that your pages have been viewed. As if this was not enough, putting ads in the widgets is currently a big NO-No – what if myspace bans us? Because we are earning money off their pageviews? I am hard pressed to find a popular widget with embedded ads.
I am really hoping that soon there will be some sobering event, like oil hitting $100/barrel, so that all this web 2.0 bullshit gets sorted out.
@SutroStyle – You have a point.
MySpace would definitiely ban RockYou and Slide because those widgets are annoying to site visitors. However plain photos are not annoying, because they just stay still. When Phtobucket-Adobe tools come out, you will see how amazing they are – and they will be very different from the other companies in the space.
Why is Photobucket is in a much better position than Slide, or other photo sites? Because it is known how to charge users for bandwidth and support it with advertizing business model. There are ads on Photobucket site, and every one of those “bandwidth exceeded” images on Myspace is an ad for the photobucket service…myspace let’s other companies keep the money from private sites. They can’t cut their users off from their photo host! You are right – there is no way those companies will make money. They certainly can’t charge the same way photobucket can. So they will die.
While Slide and other photo sites may be growing faster than Photobucket, and adding features more quickly, they currently have no revenue moddel. And they never will. Do you really think that they’ll be in a better position 12 months from now? Photobucket will just keep growing and making significant partnerships – today photobucket offers audio and video uploads and hosting? Does Slide? No. And frankly, that technology is too difficult for them to develp.
I mean, do you think that Slide will be able to go to brands and get media companies to sponsor the slide show widgets… NO WAY. The only company that has done this is Pandora – and they will remain the only one because they have more traffic than Slide – and better techniology.
Interesting to note you say Slide is worth $100 million with no revenue to date. Oh dear.
Amazing the quantity of material we generate – and most of it for entertainment purposes.
Slide just partnered with zooped.com, Looks like slide is everywhere nowadays.
Just a quick update – the “flashing” should now be fixed. There are some dependencies within the remix player requiring Flash 9. If on an older version, you should now be prompted to upgrade rather than seeing the annoying flashing. Thanks for the feedback, we’ll continue to improve the product while we move from beta to general availability.
-alex
ceo/photobucket
Hey video is out the door. Cartoons printed in the newspaper is the next new thing.