Although most are trying to figure out what exactly the Web  3.0 will be, I like to take a moment and show you what the business model of Web 2.0 was and what is happing today with web a.k.a Web 2.5.

The best way to explain what was the predominant business plan of the Web 2.0 companies, let take a look at this clip from the South Park episode called Gnomes (or “Underpants Gnomes”):

Finished? Cool stuff how the Gnomes business model and Web 2.0  look alike. Here is the comparison:

The success of Google gave “permission” to a bunch of VCs and companies to launch a “cool” or “innovative” way of using the web, getting a bunch of registered users and then (if no big company wants to buy them) try to figure out how to make money i.e facebook and youtube. Being  twitter and friendfeed  the last famous companies of the batch to use Gnomes business model.

With the economic recession [in other words realizing that we can't just waste money on promises and bet on money we don't have], it’s harder for web companies to get funding, if they don’t have clear revenue model (other than advertisement). So, today in the Web 2.5, companies like Vimeo, Animoto, Userfly and Mailchimpp, offer a trial or basic version of the service for free. If you want or need more advance features you can pay a subscription fee or paying as you go. Generally the “pay as you go” is for occasional users. What is interesting is that this is not a new business model, its basically the same used by companies behind  famous “shareware” software. But because the trend is to provide “software as a service” hosted on the “cloud” then, they took the principal of the shareware model and applied it to services. It will not be called the “shareware” model because its not software that you download and installed ( you just log and run it in your browser). The contemporary name is “freemium“.

Finally what is Web 2.5, well here is my kind of chaotic definition:

• Use freemium (or any variation) as their business model
• “the design style is really a re-emergence of the pre-web standards era of the late nineties”
• refocus on mashups and APIs
• target is less mainstream (as a result of a focus on making money)
• better user experience
• transition phase, were the lessons learn from web 2.0, are applied.

Once you have made your video in Animoto, you might want to post it in your blog. If you have WordPress and already wrote the post, and want to include it, the process is not that smooth as it should. Generally I write and then look for the media to include, or included until the post is finish. Animoto has the option of creating a post, that goes to your WordPress drafts, with the “embedded widget” and then you could add the content. However if you include more than one video, your not going to do more than one post? Also I want more control and freedom, copy paste freedom.

Note the reader: It might seen of too complicated for some users and they are better of posting the video from Animoto and then write the blog, true. However the target audience is for people that want to post more than on video or/and want more control.

Here is how you do it:

Go to your Animoto account and play your video.

Then click on the Post/Embed online button, the video will stop.

You will be presented with a variety of social media places where to post the video, choose the Embeded instead. There you will be presented with to options: MySpace and Other Sites. Click on Other sites.

Copy the code and put it on notepad or some text editor.

Here is a sample code that I copy from my video:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://widgets.clearspring.com/o/46928cc51133af17/499300880f97edc6/46928cc565ffaf02/94f136e9/-cpid/791d0466298564d9/autostart/false/widget.js”></script>

Note the two alphanumeric strings above: one in red and the other in blue. You copy the code bellow and assign to the wid the red string and to the pid the blue string. Genearrly the red one will be the same for all your videos in Animoto and the blue one will change every time you generate the code in the site, even for the same video.

['clearspring_widget title="Animoto.com" wid=" " pid=" " width="432" height="260" domain="widgets.clearspring.com"]

(Note the apostrophe betwen the braket and clearspring, that should be removed when posting, is so the wordpress will not try to process it as a widget)

At the end you will end up with the following:

['clearspring_widget title="My Animodo Post Hack" wid="46928cc51133af17" pid="499300880f97edc6" width="300" height="200" domain="widgets.clearspring.com"]

Which will look like this:

[clearspring_widget title="My Animodo Post Hack" wid="46928cc51133af17" pid="499300880f97edc6" width="300" height="200" domain="widgets.clearspring.com"]

You can also change the title, width and height of the widget. The hight and width alters the widget, not the content so you will end up like a “baddly cut off” video, as shown above.

Once you finish, you are ready to put it in your post in HTML or source mode, depending on the editor. You can use the preview button to check how it looks and if you need to tweak the size to goes better with your blog and blogging style.

Conclusion

Social media is about sharing, if you suck at it even with a great product/service, it will not pick up as it should. Animoto uses Clearspring for the posting and embedding of the content produced on the site. Its ok to outsource that, generally those one fit all solution that promise the heavens, don’t do a good job. Usability test will be nice to find where clearspring product fails. At least the Facebook one does a good job if I’m already logged, unfortunately I can’t put it in “my videos”, its posted like YouTube videos.

Today with Flickr, Facebook, Picasa and similar services, you upload your photos and then anybody of your “friends” can see them. They comment, tag and share with other friends, I can see the excitement on your face. Some people like it, is part of their lives now to do so, however there is no “feeling” on those pictures. There is no way for you to tell people in a “entertaining way” how was that moment. In movies, soundtracks are an integral part on emoting feeling from the viewers. Why don’t we enhance the experience of those “friends”, didn’t live that moment with you?

Enter Animoto

Animoto is a services that permits you to create remixed slideshows of your pictures with music. The effects are cool, funky and entertaining, as well as “dance” with the tempo of the soundtrack you select . The site does all the effects and they claim that there is no equal remix, using an AI engine. (Regarding the last feature of going with the tempo of your track, it didn’t quite work that way as you can notice below.)

The free version gives your the ability to do 30 seconds shorts. You can’t download the clip but you can share with a bunch of social media platforms i.e. Facebook, YouTube, Myspace, Blogger, WordPress. The service permits you to upload the soundtracks and pictures from your PC and import images from your Flickr, Picasa and Facebook account. Need more freedom and power:  like download, convert to High Def, create full length videos control pacing and do other stuff, will need to pay.

It doesn’t take much time, 12 images is the sweet spot on creating a nice video that will tell the story of a party or weekend. You can upload the images to your favorite social media site and then create the short. Those that want a quick glimpse can do it through the video and those that want to check how they look and relieve the moment through comments, can look at the album. If you ask me is pretty sweet.

[clearspring_widget title="Bay Islands Mix" wid="46928cc51133af17" pid="4987056da9a4dc88" width="432" height="260" domain="widgets.clearspring.com"]

[clearspring_widget title="Animoto.com" wid="46928cc51133af17" pid="4987086c27385157" width="432" height="260" domain="widgets.clearspring.com"]

As you can see, the tempo of the images and the music don’t match.