Faculte bags $2.7M for rich media presentations-made-easy
Faculte, provider of a simple platform for making multimedia presentations, online videos and pre-recorded webinars, has raised $2.66 million in a first round of preferred stock, according to regulatory filings. The San Bruno, Calif. company says Calumet Venture Fund and a handful of angel investors provided the round.
Combining the capabilities of competing companies like Animoto, Toufee, GoToMeeting and SlideRocket, Faculte offers its users a suite of web-based “broadcast studio” tools. For example, it lets companies… Continue Reading
Slideshow creator Animoto syncs business model and traffic, raises $4.4M
Animoto is one of those companies that makes my job fun. It’s a web-based slide show company that has figured out what looks to be a sustainable business model — and it has just closed a $4.4 million round of funding.
I first covered the company in August of 2007, when it launched its patented slide show-video technology. The product, a tool for creating your own multimedia slide show, stood out from other slide show widget… Continue Reading
Who did Apple hurt with its Macworld announcements?
[Disclosure: The author previously worked at Flickr, one of the companies mentioned in this story.]
In yesterday’s keynote address at Macworld, Apple unveiled a series of software product upgrades that will potentially encroach on the territory of a handful of startups and larger companies. Should you be worried?
What iPhoto might maim
For starters, one of the big announcements revolved around changes to iPhoto, which, sometime this month, will add people- and geo-tagging functionality. The people tagging works… Continue Reading
SundaySky wants to turn web content into instant video
Israeli video production company SundaySky wants to help web sites repackage their content as video — whether as a means to promote sales, build out their communities, or communicate better with their audience. SundaySky says that turning site content into videos can be time consuming and expensive for web sites, and that its service is not only a cost effective alternative but also allows for automatic and real time updates to videos. That is to… Continue Reading
Animoto’s iPhone app makes instant slideshows from your junky pictures
Everyone loves slideshows. You sit back and watch as the images before you help you reminisce about a past event. But why wait? Now you can make a slideshow minutes after taking photos thanks to Animoto’s new iPhone app.
You simply select between eight and 16 pictures, arrange the order you want them to show up in, pick a song and let Animoto encode a video pulling it all together. Once you’re done, you can watch… Continue Reading
Domo arigato, Mr. Animoto, for adding text to videos
Forget those awful photo montage videos on YouTube that teenage fans make for TV shows like “Gossip Girl” and “One Tree Hill.” Animoto, the company that allows anyone to become a music video producer by syncing up photos with tunes, now lets users add text to their videos. Text that more closely resembles sleek, movie-esque sequences, not static captions or titles. Combined with the motion graphics, effects and transitions that are the signature of an… Continue Reading
Roundup: A vintage Bill Gates rant, A123’s grid ambitions, Japanese browsers and more
Bill Gates reflects on crappy Windows experiences — As the beginning of a farewell series to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the Seattle PI has printed a long, stream-of-consciousness rant by Gates about the frustrations of using a piece of Windows software in 2003. “The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind,” Gates says in summation. Any ideas for retirement presents?
A123 looks to electrical grid storage market — Wildly successful (so far) battery… Continue Reading
Photo-music video creator Animoto raises round from Amazon
Animoto, a company that lets you create music videos out of your photos albums, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Amazon.com.
New York-based Animoto offers a way to create a more advanced version of the sorts slideshow widgets you see on MySpace, made by companies like RockYou and Slide.
Animoto launched last year with a stand-alone site where users could create 30-second videos by uploading photo albums, choosing a song, and letting the company… Continue Reading
Slideshow company Animoto makes clever use of Facebook’s platform
We don’t usually write about individual Facebook applications when they launch (there are thousands of them, and most of them are poorly made), but Animoto’s is worth taking a look at. It cleanly and simply makes use of Facebook’s data and distribution, to bring its core strength — making good slide shows — to users.
Last August, the San Francisco company launched a slide-show widget creator that lets you upload your photos and add songs from… Continue Reading
Animoto’s better online slideshows
Animoto helps you produce widget-based slideshow in slicker ways than you can with Photobucket, Slide and RockYou.
The difference?
While most other sites rely on Adobe’s Flash-based video technology, Animoto relies on its own technology to pair photos and a music track together to create them. The result is a more emotive experience, with photos being displayed for you in patterns and shapes that Animoto matches with the music.
Think of iTune’s music display, but for your photos.
If… Continue Reading