Collaborative review and approval apps aren’t necessarily a new concept. In fact, my first experience working with them was back in 2006 when I began working with a startup called syncVUE. It was a great product - it was ahead of its time in so many ways. And that was the problem. It was ahead of its time.
Facebook was 2 years old; Twitter was an infant that people didn’t quite understand (“why would anyone care that I’m eating a cheeseburger right now, and who wants to read my 140 character blathering?”). Social Media Gurus didn’t exist (thankfully) and clouds were something that just ruined your summer day.
And along came syncVUE - a "collaborative review and approval" application for post production artists who were sick of traveling, sitting in traffic, just to have to their client or team look over their shoulders as they reviewed a clip. It was novel. It was innovative. It was based on Skype. What the hell is Skype?
Oddly, that was one of the biggest barriers to adoption. No one wanted to embrace a web-based communication tool that they either never heard of, didn’t understand, or weren’t comfortable with implementing. Some enterprise clients refused to install it for security reasons - they weren’t allowed to bring it inside the firewall. So the big clients and the studios weren’t allowed to use it, they would never experience syncVUE.
It was ahead of its time.
Fast forward to today. The Cloud - especially in post production - is everywhere. Thank you Adobe. Artists are sharing on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram among others. They’re avidly using Dropbox, Google Docs, Vimeo, YouTube and email to collaborate on their work. They’re not only working in the Cloud, they live their lives in the Cloud. Sharing - not only amongst different people, but between multiple mobile and desktop devices - is the new norm. It’s ubiquitous.
So what does that mean for collaborative review and approval? We’re ready.
Enter Wipster.
Founded by filmmaker/videographer Rollo Wenlock, Wipster was born from an age-old need, but based on today’s realities. Meaning, the realities in which we live and work today. As a filmmaker working with colleagues and clients spread around the world; and using myriad disparate tools that, by themselves work great, but when stitched together to attempt a meaningful workflow, get very messy.
The status quo kind of worked. It was a painful process. It was ugly. Rollo knew there had to be a better way. Then one morning, he was inspired.
"In November 2012, at 7am in the morning, I was looking out the window holding my newborn child. The sun was coming up and it hit the dust on the window. I could see the dust as a layer on top of the sun behind it. I suddenly thought ‘why don’t we make comments right on top of the video?’ I found a great team and we started the build the product.”
And thus, Wipster was born.
The Wipster launch press release describes it well. Here’s an excerpt:
Wipster is a beautifully designed, intuitive digital media review and approval platform designed for content creators, filmmakers, in-house corporate media teams, or anyone creating short-form video projects. Wipster helps bring together creative media teams, their colleagues and clients from wherever they may be to collaborate on digital media projects; simply, elegantly and quickly.
Wipster combines a breadth of collaborative features with powerful video review features, such as the ability to create content rich emails and share secure folders with anyone with a simple invite. Wipster also offers frame accurate video playback, contextual commenting and version stacking - all in a simple interface that eliminates the tedium of connecting regionally disparate creative teams. Plus, Wipster allows users to deliver unlimited videos in their original formats - ideal for any post production workflow. The team at Wipster has invested significant time and resources to ensure the user experience is as simple, elegant and fun as possible.
Wipster is available as a cloud-based, subscription service with options to meet any teams’ collaboration requirements. Wipster also provides users with a “Free Forever” plan that gives teams access to core Wipster features, and 15 minutes of video uploads per month.
Wipster combines a breadth of collaborative features with powerful video review features, such as the ability to create content rich emails and share secure folders with anyone with a simple invite. Wipster also offers frame accurate video playback, contextual commenting and version stacking - all in a simple interface that eliminates the tedium of connecting regionally disparate creative teams. Plus, Wipster allows users to deliver unlimited videos in their original formats - ideal for any post production workflow. The team at Wipster has invested significant time and resources to ensure the user experience is as simple, elegant and fun as possible.
Wipster is available as a cloud-based, subscription service with options to meet any teams’ collaboration requirements. Wipster also provides users with a “Free Forever” plan that gives teams access to core Wipster features, and 15 minutes of video uploads per month.
But the Wipster brand video describes it even better:
Wipster launches new cloud based video collaboration platform from Wipster on Vimeo.
If you create video, and you work with more than one person to do it, you need to check out Wipster. Sign up here for a free trial. You’ll be hooked!
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