"It's very easy to capture videos," says Magisto CEO Oren Boiman, "but it's hard to create something worth sharing." Boiman's 2-year-old Israel-based firm (with offices in San Francisco and New York City) wants to help rectify this with a smartphone app that automatically edits mind-numbing iPhone or Android footage into a snappy clip.
Users upload up to 10 minutes of video from their phones to the app, choose a template and music to create the mood they want and let the software's object-oriented algorithms do the rest. The result is a cut--up to one minute and 15 seconds--that will linger on a face for a romantic clip or highlight the action at a sporting event.
In our testing, we found that Magisto can make the lives of business owners easier by allowing them to shoot, process and share high-quality videos right from their phones, ideal for capturing house or property tours, dynamic performances, fashion shows and product demonstrations. Magisto responds to movement, facial recognition and speech, but don't count on it to distill a static PowerPoint presentation or a panel discussion down to its most salient moments.
But overall, considering that Magisto is free, with a premium service available for just $5 per month or $18 per year, it can become another tool in your video-marketing arsenal--no director's chair necessary.