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Thanks to the Men of Sellsius, I jumped into Animoto to see what the buzz was about.

This site is slick. You can quickly make “videos” of pictures you supply, sync’ed to music with spiffy transitions. Here is one I put together for a listing.

The service is free, but that limits you to creating 30 second clips. Unlimited use for longer videos is only $30/year.

There are some limitations with Animoto that may annoy those who want complete control. It decides the transitions and timing (though you can “spotlight” photos — making them stay on-screen longer). You chose the photos of course, and can order and rotate them. You also select the music — either titles supplied by Animoto, or MP3s you upload.

Embedding in a WordPress blog can be tedious enough to drive one crazy– that’s the fault of the WordPress visual editor, not Animoto. Dave Smith has some tips to help, but for the life of me I couldn’t get it to embed on GeekEstate. I couldn’t even iframe it. (note to Drew, installing the Vipers’ Video Quicktags plugin may help)

It’s very easy to create these Animoto things. Marketing potential is huge. Give it a whirl!