Award-winning video creation platform gains international following with over 4 million unique videos produced

New York, NY – August 26, 2008 – Animoto (http://animoto.com), the award-winning video creation platform, today launches out of beta to celebrate its first anniversary, marking a year of significant business growth and technological innovation.  Since its launch in August 2007, more than 250,000 users in over 200 countries have registered with Animoto.com, and, to date, the Animoto platform has been used to create 4 million videos that have been viewed over 50 million times on Animoto.com, blogs, social network sites, video sharing sites and web sites around the world.

In its first 12 months of public beta, Animoto has announced several additions to its platform, continually working to make it quicker, easier and more accessible for people to create and view personalized, professional-quality videos made from their images and music.  Animoto's Facebook application launched in March 2008 and quickly grew to over 2 million users, becoming the most popular Facebook application in July by percentage of active users.  Over the course of the past year, Animoto also launched high-resolution video downloads, a music submission program, integration into YouTube, and sites optimized specifically for business and education professionals.  Though the creation of short-form videos is free, more than 10% of Animoto.com users pay for premium services, which range from feature-length video creation and DVD-quality downloads to annual subscriptions for advanced features.

“We launched Animoto a year ago with the simple goal of allowing anyone to create professional-looking video content with a click of a button," said Brad Jefferson, CEO & Co-founder of Animoto.  "We were tired and bored of seeing uninspiring slideshows online that suck the life out of photos rather than enhance the emotions in them.  The problem is that it requires expensive software, extensive training and lots of time to turn your photos and music into video of high production value.  With Animoto, it's free, simple and requires hardly any time at all."

Created by entertainment industry veterans, the heart of Animoto is its patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology that thinks like an actual director and editor, using the same sophisticated post-production skills and techniques that are used in television and film.  Users simply upload images and pick a song, and then Animoto takes care of the rest, returning a unique video orchestration with the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.  Once created, Animoto videos can be emailed, uploaded to video sharing sites like YouTube, shared on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, viewed on mobile devices like the iPhone, and even downloaded in DVD-quality formats for display on large televisions or projector screens.

Animoto has received broad industry recognition in the entertainment, technology and business arenas, winning awards such as the Web Award for the “Film/TV” category at the 2008 SXSW Interactive Festival, the Audience Choice award for best “Creation” startup at the Under the Radar Conference produced by Dealmaker Media, and the best new product in the “Entertainment & Media” category at the American Business awards.

Since launch, Animoto has announced several additions to its platform:

• December 2007 - Animoto Downloads is the first video download service of its kind, allowing videos to be saved as MP4 video files on Macs or PCs at no additional cost.
• March 2008 - The Animoto Videos application launches on Facebook and quickly becomes one of the most popular ways for users to showcase their photos on the social network.
• March 2008 - Animoto's Music Submission program introduces a powerful new way for bands and artists to feature and promote their music on Animoto.
• March 2008 - Animoto's integration with YouTube allows users to export Animoto videos directly to YouTube with a click of a button.  To date, nearly 50,000 Animoto videos have been uploaded to YouTube.
• June 2008 - DVD-quality upgrades for Animoto videos allows users to enjoy their videos on computers, televisions, and even large projection screens.
• June 2008 - Animoto for Business (http://business.animoto.com) gives businesses the ability to utilize Animoto's video creation service to create high-impact videos for any commercial purpose.  Since inception, the product has been employed by businesses ranging from large enterprises to one-person boutiques.
• August 2008 - Animoto for Education (http://education.animoto.com) gives teachers, grades K-12, unlimited access to the full range of Animoto’s services, both standard and premium, for free.  Since its debut, Animoto has become a popular tool among teachers, researchers, librarians and other educators around the globe, who use it to bring presentations and lesson plans to life in a whole new way.

About Animoto
The founders of Animoto Productions include veterans of the entertainment industry who share a passion for helping people better share their stories and express themselves through online media by innovating technologies in the field of video production.  Animoto Productions, founded in August 2006, is based in New York City with an office in San Francisco. Visit http://animoto.com

###