The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Each weekend, Mashable hand-picks startups we think are building interesting, unique or niche products.
This week, we’ve rounded up startups that have put new spins on content creation and consumption.
Clipik uses a database of freelance editors to turn your home videos and old photos into movies, Mind The Book recommends reads in a novel way and Reelr.tv lets you create a music video playlist from your Twitter account.
Clipik Video
Quick Pitch: Clipik turns your home video and photos into one downloadable movie.
Genius Idea: Employing freelance video artists to create polished movies at a low price.
Mashable’s Take: There are are three standard paths for creating a keepsake movie to showcase stacks of home videos or chronicle an event like a wedding. The first, is to be a movie editor. The second, is to hire a movie editor. And the third is to feed your media to an automatic editing program like Animoto. These paths are respectfully unlikely, expensive and somewhat limited in design.
By using a database of freelancers, Clipik provides relatively high-quality videos like the one above that can include both video and photos for between $49 and $199. Users just upload their media and describe what they want done with it.
It’s like a Demand Media of home videos — not professional, polished, award-winning stuff, but perfectly passable for the purpose it serves.
Mind The Book
Quick Pitch: A book discovery site structured around questions like “How to be happy?”
Genius Idea: Organizing book recommendations in a new format.
Mashable’s Take: If you read with a purpose, Mind The Book makes a good discovery platform. It frames recommendations around questions such as “How to lose weight?,” “How to be a good father?” and “How to make money on the internet?”
Users can submit book suggestions as answers to each of these questions and vote other answers up or down. This works well if your reading habits follow this line of thought.
If you have a different sort of question in mind when selecting literature, for instance, “What’s a well-written, worthwhile book?,” the platform is less helpful.
Whichever camp you fall into, it’s worth checking out. The site’s database is still suffering from its newness, but it’s hard not to appreciate the idea.
reelr.tv
Quick Pitch: Reeler.tv turns your music tweets into a live video broadcast by matching songs to their YouTube videos.
Genius Idea: Easy curation and sharing of personal playlists.
Mashable’s Take: Creating a playlist on Reelr.tv can be done without ever visiting the site. Just tweet the title of a song along with the hashtag #nowplaying, and Reelr.tv matches it with a YouTube video and adds it to your Queue. Sort and order playlists when you have time, and then share or embed them anywhere.
It’s also easy to browse playlists from popular “TweeJs” or from tweeters in specific cities and add songs from them to your own playlist — or to tweet them out with a link.
The site launched in June with the name mTweeV, but changed the name after MTV wasn’t a fan.
It’s no pioneer in creating social playlists, but the tweet-to-add a song feature is a fun spin and a smart way for the service to introduce itself to new users.
More About: bizspark, Clipik, Mind the book, reeler.tv, spark-of-genius, Startup Weekend RoundupFor more Startups coverage:Follow Mashable Startups on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Startups channelDownload our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
Posted on Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:44:05 +0000 at http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/A6IayygpTt4/
Comments: http://mashable.com/2011/08/13/3-ways-create-media/#comments
Each weekend, Mashable hand-picks startups we think are building interesting, unique or niche products.
This week, we’ve rounded up startups that have put new spins on content creation and consumption.
Clipik uses a database of freelance editors to turn your home videos and old photos into movies, Mind The Book recommends reads in a novel way and Reelr.tv lets you create a music video playlist from your Twitter account.
Clipik Video
Quick Pitch: Clipik turns your home video and photos into one downloadable movie.
Genius Idea: Employing freelance video artists to create polished movies at a low price.
Mashable’s Take: There are are three standard paths for creating a keepsake movie to showcase stacks of home videos or chronicle an event like a wedding. The first, is to be a movie editor. The second, is to hire a movie editor. And the third is to feed your media to an automatic editing program like Animoto. These paths are respectfully unlikely, expensive and somewhat limited in design.
By using a database of freelancers, Clipik provides relatively high-quality videos like the one above that can include both video and photos for between $49 and $199. Users just upload their media and describe what they want done with it.
It’s like a Demand Media of home videos — not professional, polished, award-winning stuff, but perfectly passable for the purpose it serves.
Mind The Book
Quick Pitch: A book discovery site structured around questions like “How to be happy?”
Genius Idea: Organizing book recommendations in a new format.
Mashable’s Take: If you read with a purpose, Mind The Book makes a good discovery platform. It frames recommendations around questions such as “How to lose weight?,” “How to be a good father?” and “How to make money on the internet?”
Users can submit book suggestions as answers to each of these questions and vote other answers up or down. This works well if your reading habits follow this line of thought.
If you have a different sort of question in mind when selecting literature, for instance, “What’s a well-written, worthwhile book?,” the platform is less helpful.
Whichever camp you fall into, it’s worth checking out. The site’s database is still suffering from its newness, but it’s hard not to appreciate the idea.
reelr.tv
Quick Pitch: Reeler.tv turns your music tweets into a live video broadcast by matching songs to their YouTube videos.
Genius Idea: Easy curation and sharing of personal playlists.
Mashable’s Take: Creating a playlist on Reelr.tv can be done without ever visiting the site. Just tweet the title of a song along with the hashtag #nowplaying, and Reelr.tv matches it with a YouTube video and adds it to your Queue. Sort and order playlists when you have time, and then share or embed them anywhere.
It’s also easy to browse playlists from popular “TweeJs” or from tweeters in specific cities and add songs from them to your own playlist — or to tweet them out with a link.
The site launched in June with the name mTweeV, but changed the name after MTV wasn’t a fan.
It’s no pioneer in creating social playlists, but the tweet-to-add a song feature is a fun spin and a smart way for the service to introduce itself to new users.
More About: bizspark, Clipik, Mind the book, reeler.tv, spark-of-genius, Startup Weekend RoundupFor more Startups coverage:Follow Mashable Startups on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Startups channelDownload our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
Posted on Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:44:05 +0000 at http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/A6IayygpTt4/
Comments: http://mashable.com/2011/08/13/3-ways-create-media/#comments