Animoto

And now a word from our sponsor.





Ok, I don't have sponsors. Nobody pays me to waste five minuets of your day. I do that out of my love for you. But if I did have sponsors, my blog would be about my love for them and read something like this:

So I found this cool little link today. I was checking the world wide web of freebies and found a tasty morsel stuck to the strands. I found an app that let me create a video from my 2012 Facebook photos.

Now I know what you're saying. "But Rob, who would be so vain that they'd want to reshare all their pictures and posts in one neat little bite-sized bundle? Where do we find this paragon of self-indulgence?"

To you I say, "Look no further.  You have found such a man."

I would also point out that the vanity aspect only tickled my senses. What really reeled me in was the promise of a quick and easily produced product.

Yup: the laze factor.

So I gave Animoto slideshow a shot.

The hardest part about creating my Animoto video was finding the link to do it.  I had read about Animoto in a USA Today article, but when I decided to try it, I went to the web page and had to do a little searching to find the app. In fact I actually had to find their Facebook page before I could get started. The Facebook page then led to a link to their page, that was the page I wanted...

After that though, I clicked a button to tell them who I was on Facebook and Animoto did the rest. In less than 2 minutes I had a pretty cool animated slideshow of my year.

And I'm gonna tell ya.  Damn! I'm fun.  I wish I was me.  I led a great life in 2012.

Animoto even incorporated my FB posts to caption my photos.   A picture popped up of the Queen Mary, with the caption "Holy Crap! I'm getting married here tomorrow!" 

Oh! This life of Rob! He's worldly, he's fun.  I want to be just like him.

I want to be just like Animoto too!  They even added a soundtrack to my slideshow. Oh it's not as cool as some of the Licensed music in my personal library, but it's also legal, and did I mention, FREE?

Of course if you do want to spend money, Animoto has a program for you too, but for me, and my cheap hairy butt, I liked  the fur I saw.

I also liked what the automation created, which was rare. What wasn't rare was that I still wanted  to go in and tweak the slideshow.  That took a few more minutes, but was very easy.  The only real limitation seemed to be the wifi speed at my free hotspot. Apparently there are some things you shouldn't skimp on.

But I didn't feel like I was skimping on Animoto. Sure, this will never replace pro video tools, but for a down and dirty slideshow that does all the work, for free, I've got no complaints.

Did I mention how cool they made me look?

Here, check it out for yourself:





Make your own slideshow with music at Animoto.