Sunday, June 22, 2008

Animoto for Library Use

Well, it took most of a Saturday afternoon, but I made an Animoto video of our Kickoff pictures. I ended up paying to make a longer video. I am already imagining groups of my personal photos I'd like to animate.

However, you need lots of patience with Animoto since it is still a beta site. Things often don't work on the first try but inexplicably work on the 2nd or 3rd try or after you sign out and sign back in. Also some things are a bit slow. It took 2 days to publish Cat Faces to Youtube, for instance. But the Kickoff video worked overnight (it is marked private). For a while Animoto wouldn't let me download my video to my laptop, and then later it did.

However, Animoto updates you on the status of your projects with either on-screen messages or email. For instance, this morning I got an email saying the Cat Faces was now on Youtube. I'd actually forgotten about sending it. It is very easy to email links of you videos to friends. That part always seems to work consistently.

Overall, Animoto is very cool and worth the time and effort.

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