Who They Are

Animoto.com, launched August 2007, is a web application that creates MTV-style videos with the click of a button. Users simply choose a song and images. Animoto then automatically generates a unique video for them. No two videos are ever the same. Many of the post-production techniques that the founders used while working as producers for MTV, Comedy Central & ABC are used in Animoto's patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence developed to think like an actual editor and director. The resulting Animoto video contains the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.

Animoto also recently won the SXSW web award in the "Film/TV" category!

YouTube and Animoto

Animoto users love their video creations and want to share them with family, friends, and the world. To some people, that means embedding their Animoto videos in their favorite social network, while to others, it means having all their Animoto videos in their pocket on their iPhone. To a large - and vocal - population of Animoto users, it means uploading their Animoto videos to YouTube and sharing them with the worldwide YouTube community. Having such an easy one-click integration will make many Animoto users happy and get more Animoto videos to a wider audience.

What They Did

Once a video is created, Animoto tries to make it easy to consume the videos on any device or platform. The integration with YouTube is as simple as adding a YouTube button as an option under the finished video.
When users click on the YouTube button they are asked to fill in YouTube specific metadata. They then click 'Export' and their Animoto video appears under their YouTube profile soon after.

Impact

Many Animoto users have been asking for this feature and from a business perspective, the YouTube integration is an amazing low-cost marketing opportunity. The hope is that millions of Animoto videos are exported to YouTube. Every time a user on YouTube views one, they'll be impressed and go to Animoto.com to create their own videos.