Cinemacraft Launches Videogram: A Slick, Multi-Thumbnail Web Video Interface

Yesterday we mentioned Taiwan-based startup Cubie, which had been accepted into the 500 Startups Accelerator program. Another Asia-based company that is also joining the program is Cinemacraft. In addition to making the shift to Silicon Valley, the startup has just released Videogram, a service that gives users a pictorial summary of the a video using an almost comic book-style, multi-panel display.

Cinemacraft describes what it sees as the current problem with internet video:

Video thumbnails are archaic and in most cases does not provide context to the content and thus does not grab the attention of the consumers and this leads to non-engagement of video(s) on social networks and publishers landing sites. Cinemacraft’s videogram produces an interactive pictorial summary of the video automactically; makes video thumbnail come to life and provides hooks to enhanced social features.

So with Videogram, users can click on visually interesting panels to skip to that part of the video. It’s a handy feature that eliminates the problem of blindly skipping through a video to find what you’re looking for. Check out the example included below for a demonstration of how it works [2].

The company raised $780,000 earlier in the year from 500 Startups and angel investors in Japan and Singapore. I asked CEO and founder Sandeep Casi what kind of revenue model they have in store for Videogram. He notes that they will be focused on publisher and user acquisition for the time being. While the service certainly looks like an attractive solution for consumers, he notes that they also foresee Videogram being used for video ads on publisher sites.

Now readers, you’re probably thinking that the most obvious application for such a video thumbnail service would be for porn [1]. I bashfully asked Sandeep if this was a market Cinemacraft had considered, but he explains that they aren’t interested in such publishers, and will be taking the same policy as YouTube with regards to pornographic content.

If you’d like to try out Videogram, you can either upload your videos directly to the site or provide a YouTube URL from which a Videogram will be generated. There’s also a Videogram mobile app for iOS which you can try as well.

Give it a try and let us know what you think.