Company Review: Jumpcut

Simple, fun, and free way to make personalized movies

If you have a passion for creating movies and music videos, but have no desire to go through all the twists and turns of downloading software, Jumpcut might be what you're looking for.

Jumpcut, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2006, is a social community for online movie makers. It's a producer's playground, because it's a simple, free, and quick way to mix media with flash-based tools and create projects directly on the Web.

If you're still a student at handling technology and you just want to make slideshows with your pictures, Jumpcut is a good way to go. A similar company is Cuts.com, which allows people to remix copyrighted content legally. Users can mash up two or three movies into an entirely fresh new experience. It doesn't seem to have an engaging social network, like Jumpcut, however. 

For starters, there are some options to import media and files from your existing online photos such as Facebook or Flickr.  I decided to upload a bunch of photos from last year's holiday memories of my family. Jumpcut offers a simple way of directing users to the uploading process. I had a few options of how I wanted to approach this process. I could have used the simple wizard by uploading my general media, giving my movie a title, and then edit from there. I also could have used one of my sets, which means I've already organized my photos and videos and I could take the step to just simply mash up the material. 

Another option was using my own stuff as well as files provided by Jumpcut. Jumpcut provided some cool pictures and themes that would possible be useful for me in the future.

I also have my very own homepage, which is a perfunctory feature on all sites, of course.

On that homepage, I can see all that I uploaded, such as movies, clips, sets, photos, audio, photos, and some others. Since I am brand new to the site I don't have any fans yet or enough material to share with the community. I also have the option to join groups and "grab" my favorite videos. I can also explore videos from the categories of  "most viewed, most loved, most recent" and have the option to rate the video as well.

When I selected the create button, I was brought to an editing studio section, where the media files were all split up.

If I wanted to be fancy, I had the option to create unique transitions as well as change any coloring on the images. It was a simple, interesting, and fun process.

As a social network, Jumpcut also gives users the option to engage with one another by displaying active groups, events, and contests. When you join a group such as Fun2watch, you are able to add your own creativity to the videos in the group. This certain group has tons of funny and creative videos and users can engage or just sit back and be entertained.

Joining an event is just being in the loop of upcoming functions that are posted on Jumpcut. I really didn't see much on here but the idea is probably promoting cool events or at least the results of them via creative videos.

Contests on Jumpcut seem to be pretty intense. For instance, a snowboarding video was featured and the challenge was to see who could create a mashup to keep up with the athlete in the video. It was about talent as well as creativity in the making of a video.