It’s no surprise that Animoto’s new video product is a hit. Upload a few short videos and images, add a song, click a button and bam, you’ve got a very high quality souvenir of your recent holiday or other event. Here’s one I put together for Foo Camp in August. More examples are here.
So far it’s a one-size-fits-all product. And since it’s such a good one no one is complaining. But there have been requests for holiday themed platforms, says CEO Brad Jefferson. And so on December 1 they’ll release themed templates for various holidays. The new product will be called Animoto Originals, and the video above is an example.
Look for holiday and life event themed templates (Christmas, weddings, etc.). Short videos are free. Full length videos (the length of a song) are $3 each, or you can buy a yearly subscription. My parents loved one holiday video I made so much that I had a DVD of it sent to them for $20 – which is another revenue source for the company.
Animoto is profitable and has over 1 million registered users. 10% of those users have purchased a product, either a subscription or one time video purchase. Short videos remain free. They’ve also started signing partners to make photo and video sharing easier. Last month they announced deals with SmugMug and Life.com.
What I’d really like to see is some sort of partnership with Someecards. But perhaps that’s too much to hope for.
