Familiar introduces video to your social screen saver

Your social picture frame just got busier

Anyone who's watched Harry Potter knows that photos are not really photos. They're video-like representations of a time in the past. They reveal more about who a person was than a still shot ever could.

We don't live in that world yet. If you come to my house, I still have dozens of framed photos. There's only one iPad that is occasionally displaye and showcases photos in a slide show.   

Something tells me that my children will not have the same layout when it comes to showcasing their photos.  

Indeed, we're getting there. Familiar, which we told you about a year ago when it raised $1.3 million in funding from high-profile angels, just released a new version of its social, photo-display service that allows video clips to be displayed in the slide show.

If you're familiar with Familiar, basically, it is now enabling you to insert two-minute video snippets into your photo slide show that displays on your iPad. You can grab those videos from a number of different places, including your desktop, iPhone and accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Picasa and SmugMug. Familiar will automatically reduce the video down to two-minutes, if it's not already below that length. But if you want to watch the full video, you can just tap on the video and the entire video will play.

The best way to understand how it works is to watch the video below.   

60 Second Overview - New Familiar from Familiar App on Vimeo.

(Image source: cracked.com)

This is a great idea for those who love to indulge in their own videos of their kids (like me). There's probably a few of those "must-watch" hilarious moments that you wouldn't mind showcasing and viewing every so often. The beauty of Familiar is that it's pretty easy to set up and use. It's also social.

As I wrote last year, I was able to create a "shared photo" channel in Familiar and share this with my parents. That "shared photo" playlist is their screen saver. I can then add photos that automatically update their screen without them having to do anything. Now I can add videos.