New York based Animoto, which turns one year old today, is one of those startups that has success written all over it. And I bet it’s a fun place to work too. We are unabashed fans of this do-one-thing-very-right service.
If you aren’t yet a user, here’s what it does: It creates videos that combine music and your photos. You upload photos directly to the service or authorize it to grab them from Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket, Smugmug or Picasa. Then it adds music you upload or that you select from the site and creates a video. It’s a variant on Slide, RockYou and similar services who for the last year have been much more focused on their Facebook Application business.
The service now has 250,000 users in 200 countries and 4 million or so videos have been viewed 50 million times.
The basic service is free and users can create videos up to 30 seconds long (that lets Animoto sidestep copyright mess on the songs). If you pay $30 a year or $3/video the time restriction is removed. Videos can be watched on the site, embedded on other sites, or downloaded in MP4 format for free. Users can also have a DVD printed and sent to them for $20, or download a high res (864×480) version in MP4 or ISO format for $5. Today they are also releasing a customized link that lets users easily view videos on their iPhone.
To date they’ve taken two rounds of financing, including an undisclosed amount from Amazon in May 2008.
Happy birthday Animoto. Focus on the core product and keep making cool stuff.
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Sounds like a slightly cooler Flip. Why do they deserve the love?
Because they aren’t trying to do everything. They do one thing (making video slideshows), and they do it an easy-to-use and simple way that works.
Umm, it says in the title. Because it makes him happy. That’s reason enough since it’s his blog!
Wow Animoto that’s amazing, By the way Congrat for Animoto
Happy BD Animoto - Keep up the good work!
Loving the new Apture plugin in your blog Mike, great addition.
Looks like they have an actual “real” business model on their hands. Small beans still, but good potential if they can grow their numbers. And that video is pretty darn bad ass, I must say. Just checked out their site. Animoto for Business. Very smart. Props.
Small beans? I’d rather have their numbers and be making real money than 100 M facebook “users” (**cough cough**, if you can actually call them that) and still be trying to figure out how to make money. 4M user-gen videos in their video in their first year? Sounds legit to me.
Mashables just wrote that 10% of their users are paying for premium services. Pretty ridiculous. Like I said, they just need to get their numbers up and they’re solid.
Happy BD Animoto
Animoto are actually annoyingly spammy on Facebook. They go through your photos tagging your friends in the videos automatically, without telling you that they’re about to do that.
Great viral way to spread, but very annoying.
At least they have cool videos. I wouldn’t mind getting one of these things. Beats getting poked. Wish their free vids were longer though.
@ Stacey: That’s the point of their business model. you want longer videos. Why would they give longer ones out for free?
@ Michael - How is it that a 30s video doesn’t apply to the copyright “mess”? - Animoto is truly a powerful and dead simple service, cant wait to see when they incorporate videos.
Looks like they have a big library of pre-licensed music. They need more genres though.
“The service now has 250,000 users in 200 countries and 4 million or so videos have been viewed 50 million times.” Great business model and looks like there is huge potential. I think they are having a Happy Birthday!
I read TechCrunch just to find out about little gems like Animoto. It is by far the best Web 2.0 site I have used yet. Its simple to use and works like magic. I like that they add features very slowly, but when they do, they work perfectly. The new HD downloads are a great example. Not only do you get a HD Quicktime file, but you also get a pre-packaged ISO. This may not mean much to tech savvy people but for the average user, being able to download this and burn it onto a DVD without file conversion hassles is simply priceless. I only wish they would add a feature that let you put more than one video onto a DVD. That would make for a great gift for family/friends.
Happy Birthday Animoto!
Great job to Brad and Team!!
Animoto is definitely a blast to use! I have some really fun videos from their site!
Michael, thanks for mentioning this interesting site.
I just went over and created my first two videos,
http://team-success.de/blog/20.....enter-see/
that went really fast.
Happy Birthday to all the girls and guys from Animoto!
sorry the link was broken
here is the right one:
http://team-success.de/blog/20.....enter-see/
Animoto makes me feel creative and “prolific” - I definitely laugh every time I create a vid. It’s awesome.
Congrats to Brad and all the other Bellevue High Grads!!!!
nice job brad. keep it up & keep on moving & shaking