Vimeo Announces ‘Looks’ Feature, Now Lets Users Add Visual Effects to Videos

engadgetWhether it was inspired by the recent Instagram craze or not, Vimeo’s new “Looks” have a pretty good chance of being welcomed with open arms (and eyes) by the video creators on its well-known platform. In partnership with Vivoom, the company announced today that it’s bringing over 500 visual effects to the service as part of its Enhancer toolbox, giving folks the ability to easily add some flavor to their own video productions straight from a web browser. Furthermore, Vimeo’s made it possible to preview these filters in real-time, as well as letting them be somewhat customizable by implementing various editing options, such as trimming and adjusting the intensity of each one. Vimeo also says the novel feature will be able to make recommendations based on “technical analysis of the user’s video and social data,” — in other words, the more you use it, the more likely it is to learn your very own visual preferences.

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Vimeo Adds “Looks” To Its Enhancer Toolbox, Powered By Visual FX Specialist Vivoom

TechCrunchVideo sharing company Vimeo has always been about bringing out the best in the videos that its creators upload. As a result, it’s gotten a reputation as a sort of artsy YouTube, the place where “real” artists make their videos available. But not every video uploaded to Vimeo gets there as a finished product. In fact, there’s a ton of content that could do with some “enhancing.”

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Poor Video Quality Prevents Social Networkers from Sharing Video

90% Won’t Share the Video They Capture, Resulted in 8 Billion Unshared Mobile Videos in 2012

Cambridge, MA – January 23, 2013 – Vivoom, the simple but powerful cloud video enhancer, today released data showing that poor image quality is a top de-motivator for consumers who otherwise would share the video they take. Despite advances in technology, social video hasn’t taken off; eight billion videos were captured on mobile devices in 2012 but never shared because they have no easy way to make them look better. If a video application existed that empowered everyone to make the video they capture higher quality and more engaging, it could exponentially increase the number of videos shared every year.

Social networkers share visual content every day as part of maintaining their online image, but are not currently sharing video to its full potential. The lack of sharing is not due to a lack of ability to capture—every smartphone today includes a video camera and options to share video. In fact, video capture is actually quite common: IDC research suggests that mobile phone users captured more than nine billion in the US last year alone. The ease of video sharing isn’t a factor, either—new mobile video applications have solved the technical hurdles and made it exceptionally easy to share video from a mobile device. However, they’ve failed to help users make their video worth sharing in the first place and consequently have seen steep declines in their active user base.

These users aren’t sharing video because they have no way to improve the quality. Sharing unattractive content is unsatisfying since it is considerably less likely that their friends and family will notice and appreciate it. Today, it is too difficult, too time-consuming, and requires advanced creative skills for users to make their video look its best. However, if they had a way to easily improve quality, an overwhelming majority of people capturing mobile video would share the video they capture.

“Quality is a significantly more complex challenge for video than it is for photos,” says Katherine Hays, CEO of Vivoom. “We believe—and this research shows—that if consumers are given a fun but effective way to improve video quality themselves, they are significantly more likely to share their videos with friends and family. We estimate removing the quality barrier could increase total social video sharing from 1 billion to 30 billion per year.”

Research Highlights:

  • Social networkers use the content they share to positively influence others’ impressions and use feedback to gauge their success in doing so. Over 80% share content online in order to get validation and positive feedback from others.
  • More than 80% of social networkers feel it is important for their content to look good before they feel comfortable sharing it online.
  • The top three things that social networkers look for when considering whether to share a video are quality, relevance, and ability to get a reaction from their friends.
  • Social networkers are able to detect a high-quality video when they see one—even when the image resolution is the same. In fact, 94% of consumers prefer a video enhanced with a Vivoom look over an unenhanced one and identified it as “looking better.”
  • Despite most social networkers’ hesitancy to share video today, 75% agree that they would share a video they had taken if they could improve the quality and make it look more visually appealing easily; 81% would share if they could customize their video quickly.

Download the full white paper andresearch brief.

About Vivoom™
Vivoom is the only cloud-based video enhancer that lets you make each video you’ve captured one you’re happy to share. Vivoom helps you create stunning video that your friends will notice and appreciate. Your video not only looks dramatically better every time but also reflects your style because Vivoom suggests a set of Looks specific to you and your video context from a portfolio of thousands of the world’s bestperforming Looks. Founded in 2012, Vivoom seamlessly integrates into digital media sites so their users can create more engaging video their friends will love to watch. vivoom.co

Insight Venture Partners-Backed GenArts, Inc. Expands Into Social Video, Introduces Vivoom

Game-Changing Solution Makes Creating Better-Quality Video Accessible To Social Networkers

Cambridge, MA – January 23, 2013 – GenArts, Inc., the global leader in specialized visual effects software, today announced its entrance into the social video market with Vivoom—a simple but powerful video enhancer. Vivoom is designed to inspire social networkers to share the video they are capturing, some eight-billion-plus videos that went unshared last year. Vivoom lets anyone fix, style, and personalize from within social networking sites, blogs and video sharing sites. For the first time, everyone can make every video look measurably better, every time. Vivoom’s enhancer will debut with its first partner, a major video-sharing site, shortly. A standalone application for web and mobile will be available this spring.

Vivoom makes everyone want to share the video they’ve already captured because it improves the quality of each video. Enabling consumers to improve quality is critical to unlocking social video: more than 80 percent of social networkers would share the video they take if they could easily make it look “good.” Vivoom offers a fun and engaging experience that produces superior results, so people are more likely to share their video and viewers will watch it for longer.

“Making video look good is a really complex problem,” says Katherine Hays, CEO of Vivoom. “But we’ve found that quality is absolutely critical for people to be willing to share the video they capture and for their friends and family to be excited to watch. Consumers can see the difference in quality and it matters. For video, there are two critical dimensions of quality: one is measurable and influences behavior; the other is highly subjective and dictated by personal style. For social video to take off, a solution needs to solve for both.”

That seemingly small difference in quality has a dramatic effect on social video sharing. Today, the average person has nearly 20 videos on their phones that they have taken but never shared because they simply don’t look good enough. Vivoom measurably improves the quality of these videos and motivates consumers to share them. After enhancing with Vivoom, more than 90% of consumers actually share the video they create and viewers watch those videos 20-40% longer. As a result, viewers are more likely to comment or “like” Vivoom videos, giving users the social payoff they want while inspiring a virtual cycle of video sharing.

This effect on user behavior significantly impacts how people use video in social media and could increase the number of social videos shared from 1 billion today to 30 billion per year. For the digital media companies that integrate Vivoom, engaged users and reduced abandonment translates into significant financial gains. For example, a 10% reduction in viewer abandonment could net an additional $650 million in revenue per month for YouTube alone.

Vivoom is able to improve quality in a way that changes consumer behavior with an intuitive solution that gives users the tools and confidence to share more with video. Only Vivoom gives users access to the largest selection of the best-performing video filters called Looks, suggests relevant design choices for each user’s video, and makes it fast, easy and fun to improve quality. By partnering with Vivoom, digital media companies can give their users the tools they need to make the video they capture look better. Vivoom’s video enhancer seamlessly integrates into each partner’s existing look and feel through a fully-customizable API. Vivoom will launch with its first partner soon and expects to release a standalone solution later this spring.

Incubated within high-end visual effects pioneer GenArts, Vivoom has an exclusive license to their worldclass visual effects engine and related technology. GenArts has been used by the most discerning video creators at top TV, film, and video production companies like Sony Imageworks, Warner Brothers, NBC, ABC, ESPN, HBO, Disney, The Mill, Weta Digital, and many more since 1996.

About Vivoom™
Vivoom is the only cloud-based video enhancer that lets you make each video you’ve captured one you’re happy to share. Vivoom helps you create stunning video that your friends will notice and appreciate. Your video not only looks dramatically better every time but also reflects your style because Vivoom suggests a set of Looks specific to you and your video context from a portfolio of thousands of the world’s bestperforming Looks. Founded in 2012, Vivoom seamlessly integrates into digital media sites so their users can create more engaging video their friends will love to watch. vivoom.co