We’re in our final stages of the Collage private beta. It’s been fantastic seeing what has been created!

We’ve added a bunch of new features lately, including:

• Secure Flickr account access
• Secure Picasa account access
• Smugmug account access
• Video Layering
• TEXT layout and positioning

to check out collage, visit: http://www.vuvox.com/collage

We’re very excited about the advancements in ‘VUVOX: Cut-out Express‘. It’s been been fun watching some of our early beta testers create some pretty amazing things. The possibilities of dynamic frame cut-outs allow any photograph to be used to create a contextual portal to another piece of media. That could be a slideshow OR video. The juxtaposition of the media seems to be a really nice combination.

There’s really no end to what you can create with this thing. We want you to use it, share it and *dare* someone to a Cut-out dual!

Click on the ‘Menu’ button in the player to navigate to other cut-out examples.

We’ve been making advancements in our photo collage tool. Our most recent collaborations include the San Jose Mercury News Photo department, specifically the work by Richard Hernandez. We recently invited Tech Blogger & photo enthusiast, Robert Scoble to talk with us about these recent developments, and how VUVOX works with Photojournalists.

The piece created by Hernandez was an interactive photo essay on the town of Willow Glen, California. The piece took about two weeks of research to document and photograph, but only about two hours to create in the new VUVOX collage tool. Scoble interviews Richard on his Creation process.

Next, Robert Scoble interviews Dane Howard, CXO of VUVOX about tool itself and how the user experience was design for VUVOX collage.

The Collage tool is currently in private beta, if you’re interested in giving feedback or being contacted about the VUVOX beta, let us know.

Boston, MA: Our friends at Flashforward and Lynda.com are using VUVOX to showcase images coming directly from the conference. The attendees are invited to upload their images to Flickr and join the “Flashforward Boston” group and/or tag their photos “flashforward” –> They’ll be participating in one big photo feed, that is syndicated back into the Flashforward Website.

There will be three galleries of content. Conference Photos Gallery will include images from conference attendees, Expo Hall Gallery, and Flashforward Speakers Gallery, which will focus on the Point of view of Speakers.

Mario Klingemann, AKA (Quasimondo) will also be on-site, giving a talk and being Mr. VUVOX ambassador.

A new style variation emerged the other day from our test bed of Beta Production tools. This time we’ve added it to the public beta line-up of VUVOX Studio styles that everyone can access. Embedded in this page is an example piece published with this new style. It shows off a couple things we’ve been working on.

Firstly, we’ve been working on styles composites that take on multiple media targets, each can designate their own presentation ‘engine’. Cinematic Duality allows you to set the foreground to ‘Slideshow’ and the background to ‘Vuvision’. We’ve also developed our ’sequence’ engine, which overlays images on top of eachother. An example of the sequence engine is found here. It works best when shooting burst mode on your camera.

The layout is very simple here, but the relationship of foreground/background & the letterbox showed real promise. The live tools allows you to add music and change background color. The customize palette allows you to specify which layout you want in your scene.

TIP: make sure that you play with the order of your media in your storyboard to affect the layout and flow of which images flow into the media targets

Aug. 14, 2007, Palo Alto, CA — We were invited back to the DEMO alumni party, hosted by Chris Shipley. It was a great event to re-connect with old friends.

There was an opportunity to give a quick update to some select individuals on the progress we’ve made since our preview last Feburary in Palm Desert. Here’s some pictures from the event:

We really care about final quality and the content that is being communicated. We also believe that most people feel strongly about how their memories are preserved. However, production values (to borrow a Hollywood term) have always been the domain of lofty professionals with big budgets and time on their hands. Current desktop and online consumer companies have more or less said: “if you want high quality personal content, be prepared to spend a lot of time.” In a 24/7 world….who has time ? The result is that today’s creation solutions force you into accepting imposed limitations. In this world, tech terms like “ease of use” become an accepted tradeoff for simplistic expression. The result: EVERYTHING looks the same. Is this the future of digital media communication ? Is this all you want ?

Anyone who spends time on VUVOX, immediately realizes that we take the user’s overall site experience and targeted feature design very serious. While we don’t always get it right the first time, we know that design elegance centers on making complex tasks appear easy. The experience should deliver results that continually delight the customer. There is no reason more advanced production values can’t be within reach of every customer.

Of course, talk is cheap.

We just had a discussion about a specific feature that might be just beyond some customer’s ability to intuitively understand its function. If they have previously used any standard photo editing tools…they should instantly understand this feature…if not, they might be initially scratching their heads until they move through the process once.

The risk: It will require the customer to click a few more times and perhaps learn something new.

The reward: If we implement this feature it introduce a new browser based creation paradigm that is very exciting (we hope).
What do you think ?

- Should we put that functionality in ?
- Do we “dumb down” the product to make sure everyone can use it ?
- Do we narrow our target market to provide a feature that may cause the larger mass market problems ?

Digital cameras ? Camcorders ? Cameraphones ?… ACTION !

In 2006, a small team with a solid history of digital media development, came together to discuss the status of online media creation and sharing.

We looked at the various solutions for desktop and online production and we noticed four things:

1. To communicate beyond a simple slide show, takes a great amount of effort.
2. Locating and editing personal media is still a time consuming process.
3. Current solutions - blogs, slideshows - are focused on 20th century formats that center on minimal interaction (passive viewing) and static page layouts.
4. Everything looks the same.

What are we doing about it…

VUVOX is not limited to 20th century thinking… we are all about innovation. A display based, 24/7 mobile world demands new forms of media creation that reflects your desire to constantly capture and share your life… AS IT HAPPENS. Most important, you should be able to communicate with high quality production values that reflect the vision that you alone are bringing to the world.

With our launch of STUDIO and EXPRESS in June, 2007, we introduced a new type of platform that enables unmatched personalization. As you dig into STUDIO… the platform’s customization power becomes apparent. If you want super fast creation and sharing, EXPRESS is the place to go. It’s all about giving you the control to find and express your visual voice.

This is not a one-way street.

Our role is develop and evolve the most powerful 24/7 media creation and sharing platform on the planet. Your role is to have fun using VUVOX and constantly guide us on where you want the platform to go. It’s going to take time and dedication on everyone’s part. We will hit bumps along the way. Working together, we will create something special.

The VUVOX BLOG will help you find out more about VUVOX. We are really excited about establishing a dialog with you:

- What do you like… or, dislike ?
- Ideas for improving the platform.
- Highlighting VUVOX Styles that take visual expression to a new level.
- Business, Creative and Technical thoughts.
- VUVOX special announcements.

So, welcome. We are super excited to have the chance to work with you as we all set out to realize our visual media expression dreams !

The VUVOX Team