cloud | Technology Bloggers

Givit Video Editor App Review

31st May 2013 2 Replies Christopher Roberts

This is the 200th article I have written on Technology Bloggers! I really enjoy writing for the blog and value the community.

Technology Bloggers top smartphone app reviewers are without a doubt, Steve and Ron. In the past I have attempted app reviews myself, however I have never reviewed just a single application in one post. What better time to try something new then than in post 200!

I’m playing it safe with my first app review, and choosing an app that has already been reviewed by TechCrunch, and written about on the The Wall Street Journal’s website. The app is called Givit Video Editor, and is available for all iDevices.

What is Givit?

So what exactly is Givit Video Editor? Well in the words of (the apps creators) Vmix Media:

“Givit is a free, fun and simple app to quickly make and share great videos on iPhone.”

As I am sure you know, Instagram is a photo sharing application, which lets you share photos you take, pretty much instantly, to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Givit offers a similar service, but for video.

Sharing

One of the key features of the app is its sociability. The app interoperates ‘one-click’ sharing to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as email compatibility, so you can privately email clips. You can also upload your videos to the Givit cloud, where you get 5GB of free storage.

A screenshot of the Givit sharing screen.

The latest version of the app (3.2.0) enables you to find and invite your Facebook friends, so you can see which of them are sharing their videos, and post your clips to your stream.

Features

The app is a clever video editor, which lets you mash different clips together, so you can chip and chop the best bits of clips and the stitch them together to make great montages.

The app is also compatible with live editing, so you can modify clips as you are filming, adding effects and music wherever you choose.

Cost

One of the best things about the app is that it is completely free! With the Standard Account (as I mentioned earlier) you get 5GB of permanent free storage; so long as you use it once every 3 months. 5GB is enough room to store around 30 minutes of uncompressed HD video; Givit probably have some clever compression going on, so I would imagine you get a bit more that 30 minutes.

Half an hour is all I think I need, as the clips I want to share are only usually a minute or two long, however if you are a budding videographer and need more space you can buy a Premium Account, which costs $29.99 a year, for an extra 100GB of storage.

So far, reviews of the app seem positive. The apps official iTunes rating is currently 4 stars in the UK store and 3.5 in the US store. Coverage on sites like Macworld, CNET and the above mentioned TechCrunch indicate the growing popularity of the service.

Interested in getting the app? Click here to download the Givit from iTunes.

Shoot, edit, share and store – that’s Givit!

How the Latest Tech Can Help Meet Deadlines

17th April 2013 1 Reply MattRawlings

It seems that it doesn’t matter what industry you work in, you’re always faced by deadlines that loom large above your head, waiting to strike. Whether you’re a journalist facing daily deadlines to get your copy written and published, or a warehouse worker tasked with creating so many of your products each day or an agency worker tasked with getting a job done before the end of the month, we’ve all got them.

If only there was some way of making things simpler, taking the stress away and helping us to relax a bit more and get the job done without the typical end of month stress. Fortunately, thanks to the developments in technology over the past decade, there is. Developers are now working on software packages designed to make the hard, laborious tasks much simpler allowing us to focus our time, effort and resources on other areas of the business, like discussions with clients and ensuring that the marketing goes as well as possible so that you can expand the company at your own pace and in the right areas.

Let’s look at one particular example. Sorting out the rota for the next few weeks can be one of the hardest task faced by any member of the management, having to deal with holidays, sickness and ensuring that the optimum number of people are in on the busiest and quietest days of the week, and covering themselves for a quiet day turning into chaos, too. The installation of shift scheduling software can help those tasked with organizing the rota to ensure that the right people are in on the right day, and that people who are booked off aren’t included in the plans so they can adjust accordingly. It’s far more efficient and professional than using a pen and paper and saves an incredible amount of time.

Cloud solutions have proven to be another fine example of helping to meet deadlines. You might be faced with one strict deadline, and get called away from the office for an important meeting. Alternatively you may have a family emergency that means you have to work from home at the worst possible time. Cloud storage, however, enables you to access all of your work files wherever you are and upload the updated versions ready for someone else to access them and put them to print, send to the relevant people or save for the finishing touches from a member of another department.

No matter whether you’re a large or small, established or fledgling business, there are now all kinds of technologies and software packages designed to make our lives easier on both a personal and professional level.

Jump Start Your Revenue Generation In The Cloud

21st December 2012 1 Reply Rob Boirun

Independent software vendors (ISVs) need to constantly release new products, upgrade features to existing products and maintain market share in an era defined by shifting tastes and a quickly evolving consumer base. Cloud based solutions can facilitate this process and help to jump-start your revenue.

According to Jiten Patil, cloud expert and senior technology consultant at Persistent Systems, customer “stickiness” is never guaranteed and poses a challenge to the ISV revenue cycle. But take heart, there are a few simple solutions to address these challenges and none will require shifting resources away from your core business.

Patil breaks the large ISV landscape into two general categories. The first are ISVs that are introducing a brand-new product, whether they are a startup or an established firm releasing a renascent offering. The second are ISVs retooling existing solutions to take advantage of customers’ new interest in cloud-computing technology. Regardless, nearly all ISVs can boost revenue generation by following a few simple steps.

1. Refine Your Strategy and Accelerate Your Go-To-Market Process

ISVs must develop new methodologies to bring products to market quickly. This means that you must make sure that the product design facilitates fast product delivery. According to Patil, it should be a priority to accelerate the marketing, promotion and sales process so that the all-important order-to-cash process can begin.

It’s important to hire talent with skill sets that support your product deployment strategy. You will want to complement your engineering talent with employees with strong skills in sales, marketing and cloud based product delivery.

2. Identify Your Unique Cloud Roadmap, and Build In End-to-End Revenue Generation

Patil said companies must first identify a unique cloud roadmap. This roadmap may deviate from traditional cloud-based solutions, or it may imitate a go-to-market strategy that’s already proven successful. Whichever route your company chooses, make sure that you’re working toward creating an end-to-end revenue generation process throughout the duration of the promotion, marketing and sales cycles. ISVs should employ strategies like continuous delivery of promotional content, new product trial offers and value-added features, Patil said, to keep clients engaged.

Of course, the cloud can facilitate product updates on-demand to quickly address software problems. However, according to Patel, ISVs should also use the cloud to keep customers apprised of new products, solutions, updates, and other information in real time. Together, these processes can build brand awareness and expedite the go-to-market process.

3. Use Cloud Solutions for Continuous Packaging and Distribution

ISVs should consider how cloud based technologies can be used for packaging and distribution of their applications. The cloud can also provide an extended development and testing platform for your products. This can streamline and speed up your product development and quality assurance process and enable you to begin generating revenue more quickly.

By following these guidelines, ISVs can use the cloud to accelerate the revenue generation cycle. ISVs ultimately need to plan for continual growth by embracing the new business strategies engendered by cloud computing. Doing so will ensure your business will remain competitive for years to come. Rackspace Hosting is the service leader in cloud computing, and a founder of OpenStack, an open source cloud operating system. The San Antonio-based company provides Fanatical Support to its customers and partners, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing.