Jumpcut is a video-editing site that’s still available in a limited form.  A post on the site even states, "We will be keeping the Jumpcut site up and running for the foreseeable future so you’ll still be able to play, remix and share your existing movies."  But it continues, "[Y]ou just won’t be able to upload anything new," and recommends that users have a look at Flickr.

 

Yahoo acquired Jumpcut in September of 2006.  Considering that the service never made it out of beta, stopping its development seems like a reasonable move.

As for Kickstart, it’s been around since at least August of 2007, and as a would-be Facebook/LinkedIn competitor, stood an even smaller chance of success.  Now Kickstart’s homepage only shows a woman staring at a dim light bulb – perhaps about to turn it off.

On a practical level, now that Yahoo’s 1,500 employees smaller than it was a week ago, holding onto every project would be insane.  The specifics of these new cuts are a good sign that Yahoo’s correctly targeting dead ends, and hat tips go to Stuart Turton and Robin Wauters.

Over the last few years they have either created or purchased online social sites, here is a quick breakdown of some of the major start-ups and acquisitions:

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2005
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• name: flickr
• acquired
• purpose: photo sharing
• similar to: DropShots
• status: Top photo and image sharing website online. When acquired by Yahoo!, flickr was a top online property and it still is.

• name: Yahoo! 360°
• created
• purpose: Personal Pages
• similar to: Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle
• status: Still in beta, Yahoo! 360° has yet to really take off as a sharable social personal page creator. It gives users the ability to create a public profile with feeds, photos, blog, lists and more. Without Yahoo! putting more emphasis on marketing this to their users. It may be outmatched before it gets out of beta.

• name: blo.gs
• acquired
• purpose: manage online blogs and feeds

similar to: Bloglines, Technorati

• status: Not active. Blo.gs is still visible online, but the functionality is not there.

• name: del.icio.us
• acquired
• purpose: bookmark and share web-pages accessible everywhere
• similar to: StumbleUpon
• status: Active and still a force in online sharing and bookmarking of websites and web-pages.

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2006
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• name: JumpCut
• acquired
• purpose: create, upload, edit and share videos online
• similar to: YouTube
• status: Although YouTube is not designed to create and edit videos online, it has definitely become the driving force for online video viewing and sharing. Although it appears to be a quality product, Yahoo! hasn’t promoted JumpCut to be a force online.

• name: bix
• acquired
• purpose: create, enter and judge online competitions
• similar to: online, user-generated American Idol
• status: Started as an online community to upload and compete with other lip-sync and karaoke fans online, it still is an online property to spend countless hours. Not heavily marketed by Yahoo!

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2007
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• name: MyBlogLog
• acquired
• purpose: build communities around blogs
• similar to: Technorati favs
• status: MyBlogLog has developed a very strong presence in the blogosphere with it’s recent readers widget that is visible on many blogs.

• name: Y! Mash
• created
• purpose: social networking
• similar to: MySpace
• status: Although it has been available in beta since mid-September 2007, it is still in limited release (for a free invite, send me an email). It is remarkably similar to MySpace and hasn’t really been pushed or promoted by Yahoo! yet.

• name: Kickstart
• created
• purpose: social and professional networking
• similar to: Facebook, LinkedIn
• status: Rather than calling it beta, Yahoo!’s Kickstart is in a “preview” status that is accessible to everyone. Targeting college students and alums, Kickstart really hasn’t had much of one from Yahoo! yet.

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2008
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We don’t know yet!

Yahoo has invested a lot of money in the purchase, building and maintenance of these online communities listed here, but I wonder when Yahoo! plans on leveraging these online properties into a powerhouse that can rule the social Internet?

Here are a couple of questions and comments that come to mind:

• Yahoo! 360° – Why not merge My Yahoo! (also in beta) together?
• Blo.gs – What happened here? Why did Yahoo! purchase this to let it go dormant?
• JumpCut – Can’t you get the buzz out and start making a move against YouTube?
• bix – This is a perfect time to get this property buzz, psst, this is an election year and with the influence politics has online, this could be a great opportunity!
• Y! Mash – Why is this still in beta? Legal concerns with MySpace?
• Kickstart – Another opportunity as people are raising red flags over Facebook’s use (or misuse) of personal information.

What are your thoughts?

Do you think that Yahoo can maintain all of these social websites to keep them recognizable to online users?

Will Yahoo start leveraging their search presence to gain additional traffic through these social websites?

Will other Yahoo social platforms go the way of blo.gs?

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Mitt Romney – Jumpcut Candidate Remix

Jumpcut, the video editing site Yahoo picked up last September, will host the Team Mitt contest. The promotion runs through September 17th.

“Governor Mitt Romney wants you to make his campaign

In short films of two minutes or less contestants will answer the question, "What does green mean to you?" Those who participate in the contest can edit and submit films on Jumpcut between March 8- April 22. Over that period of time, viewers will be able to vote on films they find to be worthwhile. Up to ten films will be selected to be included in the final voting stage from April 26-May 6 where viewers can vote for the Audience Favorite.

"Yahoo! Video is one of the most creative groups the San Francisco Film Society has had the opportunity to work with," said Graham Leggat, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society. "We are very excited by their new ideas for filmmakers and film audiences and are looking forward to exploring with them the converging frontiers of film and digital technology."

The Grand Prize Winner will be presented with $1,000 prize and the Audience Favorite will be announced at the SFIFF50 Golden Gate Awards ceremony on Thursday, May 9. The two winning films will be screened and will also be available for viewing online at Jumpcut.

"As a leading online video destination, Yahoo! Video is constantly looking for opportunities to enhance the online video experience for our users." said Vince Broady, Head of Yahoo! Entertainment. "By partnering with the San Francisco Film Society, we are offering exciting, high-quality independent film content to our users within a branded experience. And by providing an online video editing platform through Jumpcut, we’ll empower our users to express "What it means to be green" through the power of video"

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Youth will be heard this summer. The contest wants submissions from filmmakers aged 16-25. Film Your Issue and Yahoo want 30- to 60-second videos on pressing issues of importance in the world today.

Yahoo will provide video hosting on its Jumpcut website. Last year, Yahoo acquired Jumpcut and its video editing and remixing tools, all of which may be accessed through a web browser.

All that a potential entrant in the vital age group needs is a camera and an idea. The availability of tools like those on Jumpcut were a pipe dream to older people who had to learn to do things like splice actual film during the editing process.

The tools really are an astonishing accomplishment. Digital media and the tools to manipulate it, especially video, may be the revolution promised by a thousand cries to ‘stick it to The Man.’

Plenty of cross-property promotion will come from Yahoo and its properties. As the contest’s exclusive online sponsor, Yahoo will push ‘Film Your Issue’ in several locations. Company CEO Terry Semel, a long-time Hollywood veteran, and several celebrity judges like John Cusack and Walter Cronkite, will pick the winning submissions.

Yahoo users will have the opportunity to vote on their favorites too. Their favorite filmmaker, as well as the finalists in other categories, will attend the awards ceremony at the United Nations building in New York in June 2007.

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To many startup companies, being bought out by a major Internet player like Yahoo represents things like newfound wealth for the owners, and the chance to gain substantial resources for the development of their product. Jumpcut has additional priorities.

“We’ll be able to make things happen faster and on a larger scale (and we’ll have a brand new foosball table),” Jumpcut CEO Mike Folgner blogged today about his company’s acquisition by Yahoo.

Jumpcut allows people to easily create and edit movies online. People can upload videos, photos, and music, remix content shared by others, and then share those creations and remixes with others.

Yahoo’s VP of Social Media, Jason Zajac, welcomed Jumpcut to the fold:

Jumpcut will be part of Yahoo Video, itself recently revamped heavily to capitalize on the growing interest in online video. Yahoo’s Video users should see Jumpcut debut there very soon.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Here’s what Jumpcut has to say about the deal…

We have worked hard to pioneer great online video editing technology that can truly enhance the online video world by enabling anyone to become a creator. Joining forces with Yahoo! Video will provide the resources to bring Jumpcut users and our partners more great social media experiences. As part of Yahoo! we’ll be working on bringing video editing and remixing to everyone with an Internet connection.

And they have a cute video too!

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

Who Watches The Most Video Streams?

comScore added Flash video content measurement as an enhancement to its existing Video Metrix service, calling it the first service to track actual online streaming video behavior among US Internet users.

Over 106.5 million people, or about three out of every five US users, streamed or downloaded video during the month of July for a total of 7.2 billion videos. With an average of 67 streams per viewer for that month, the typical user viewed at least two streams per day.

The metrics company found that Yahoo sites topped the list in terms of total unique US video streamers at 37.9 million. MySpace trailed close behind with 37.4 million (about a third of MySpace members), and YouTube ranked third with 30.5 million streamers.

Time Warner Network and Microsoft sites also made the list, attracting 25.7 million and 16.2 million streamers, respectively.

Faring “particularly well in US user engagement,” MySpace ranked first in terms of individual video streams initiated by US users, with nearly 1.5 billion streams, or 20 percent of all videos streamed in the country in July. The typical MySpace member initiated an average of 39 streams that month, or a little over one per day. Yahoo was second in this category, with 812 million US-initiated streams, followed YouTube with 649 million.

“The surge in Web video content enables advertisers to expand beyond banners and reach online audiences using sight, sound and motion,” said Erin Hunter, executive vice president of comScore’s Media and Entertainment Group.

YouTube has been flirting with possible acquisition suitors, setting its minimum bid at $1.5 billion, if the company decides not to go public. According to the New York Post, those suitors have included Viacom, Disney, AOL, eBay, and News Corp.

Adding YouTube to News Corp.-owned MySpace’s extensive presence would put News Corp. in control of two-thirds of the Web video traffic, according to July numbers. However, recently a News Corp. executive mentioned the possibility MySpace would add its own in-house YouTube-like service, as MySpace drives much of YouTube’s overall traffic.

Yahoo is also getting more aggressive on the video scene. The world’s busiest Web portal added video-sharing site Jumpcut to its acquisitions list.

From the Jumpcut blog:

“Ever since Yahoo! Research Berkeley launched the International Remixer, our interest in this space has been pretty clear – we couldn’t stop talking about how cool it is to mashup multimedia of all kinds,” said Yahoo VP of Social Media Jason Zajac.

“So needless to say, we are very happy to have Jumpcut join the Social Media group here. They’ll be bunk-mates with Flickr, and just around the virtual corner from del.icio.us.”

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