RAAK

In the category ‘simple ideas that do one thing very well’, I’ve just discovered Animoto via @erwblo. Yet another example of the ever-growing importance of online video.

Animoto is an online/iPhone/Facebook service where you send in pictures and/or  video footage (a recent addition) and it creates an animated film slash music-video slash snazzy slideshow. The interface is pretty simple: it allows you to sort your footage, add text and music and when you click submit, as if by magic, a few minutes later you’ll have a full video with funky transitions between your footage.
Oscar-winning production it ain’t, but it has to be said: for an automated ‘editing service’ the results are really quite impressive.
There’s a good example on Animoto’s homepage, but also check out @erwblo’s example of what he did with the pictures of his son skating.

So I can definitely see Animoto become a super-simple and cheap way of letting non-media organisations and punters add a an extra layer to their otherwise static content.