Digital Image Collections: Real-Time Sharing And Interactive Distribution With FilmLoop
FilmLoop is an innovative new presentation and image-sharing tool which allows instant and real-time sharing of digital photos.
With FilmLoop you can create a loop of photos moving on your desktop by simply dragging pictures from your hard disk and dropping them on to the loop strip. You can also send a link of the updated loop to your friends through email and your friends can see the loop after clicking on the link.
FilmLoop automatically re-sizes images to fit in the Loop and uploads the higher resolution images in the background. When you "drag and drop" photos into Loops, your changes instantly appear on the desktops of everyone else in the Loop, whether it's one, ten, or a million people.
Besides sharing photos with your family and friends, you can also use FilmLoop for publishing marketing ads and business promotions. You can use FilmLoop to promote your new products, podcast, RSS feed, ebook, music tune, or white paper.
A Loop is a collection of images that moves across your screen and can be viewed by an invited group of users, or the public. Created Loops can be played continuously on your computer. Loops can be updated at any time, with new photos or comments and when they are, all of the Loop's members can see the changes instantly. Everyone who joins a Loop can get involved, adding their own photos and comments to the original Loop.
There can be various types of loops too.
Information Loops, which are operated primarily by news networks and services, provide up-to-date, photo-centric features and stories to a connected, informed and news hungry audience. FilmLoop partner World Picture Network, provides FilmLoop users with Loops that update daily covering news, entertainment, sports, and feature stories.
Users can stay in touch and current with content by picking up images
from their favorite websites and blogs that have a public RSS feed.
Commercial Loops can expand a company's e-commerce capabilities and extend their presence by providing constantly updating lines of new products and services right to their customers' desktops.
FilmLoop is free for individuals, and will be supported by high-quality, photo rich ads. Businesses can sponsor their own Loops, or can target advertising in consumer Loops.
FilmLoop revenue comes in fact from advertisers, who pay to insert ads after Loops that are hosted on FilmLoop servers. It's a win-win situation for the users - who can show their photos for free in the easiest way - and for advertisers who to target information in a very specific fashion.
Targeted advertisements are placed between Loops and adjacent to images when they are enlarged in the "zoom view." FilmLoop offers a relevant, omnipresent, and uncluttered space for businesses to target their demographic. With a simple click, individual images in a FilmLoop can open to an enlarged view, link to a video clip or a Flash-based animation, or provide direct access to a "click to buy" or "bid" page on any pre-designated website.
FilmLoop is often compared with its close competitor Slide, which provides quite similar features such as free download of software and sharing of photos. But FilmLoop is definitely richer in features than its competitor. Unlike FilmLoop, Slide cannot be used for advertising purposes and real-time sharing of photographs.
Other key features of FilmLoop are a common public directory, a central repository, instant updates, an easy invitation system, the ability to zoom in on photos and to integrate links to downloads, web pages and more within each image.
Also images in a FilmLoop can link to other FilmLoops and allow plenty of annotating and commenting both from the author and the FilmLoop viewers.
FilmLoop maintains a central repository on its server. It is basically a client-server application that allows you to create online slide shows in a film-strip fashion.
FilmLoops can also be used as screen-savers. You can make FilmLoop your default screensaver by selecting "FilmLoop Settings..." from the "options" menu. Click the "Desktop Options" icon and check the box next to "Set FilmLoop as my screen saver". Don't forget to click OK to save these settings. Now, whenever your monitor switches to screensaver mode, your Loops will automatically play on your screen.
Images in a FilmLoop can be protected both from copying as well as from saving and printing.
Also an innovative feature, FilmLoop messages, lets you know who has joined your Loops, and whether comments have been added. When an image is added to a Loop, or a new comment is written or someone new joins the Loop, all the members of that Loop are notified by a FilmLoop message. FilmLoop messages appear in the FilmLoop message window. You can display the message window by right-clicking the FilmLoop icon in the system tray, and choosing Show Notifications.
The FilmLoop Network also provides a public directory which contains loops on various topics such as, news, entertainment, and sports. You can join the FilmLoop network directory and also contribute your own loops to it.
The FilmLoop Network's public directory contains titles, links and previews of user-created Loops of all kinds. Any Loop creator can choose to have his/her Loop included in the FilmLoop Network's public directory. The FilmLoop Network also features news, entertainment, sports and off-beat Loops from the World Picture Network, a network of more than 400 photographers who provide FilmLoop users with daily captioned photo stories from around the world.
After you have installed the free downloadable software, FilmLoop displays a loop of photos moving across your screen. You can resize the loop to multiple pre-set sizes including: a mini strip, standard or a pocket-sized.
To create a new image loop, you need to click on the "create" button that appears on the FilmLoop strip and type the name of the loop you want to create in the Loop Name box.
You can now simply drag and drop photos in the new loop that you have created.
Existing loops can be easily updated with extra photos and unwanted pictures can be easily deleted. Since FilmLoops are created to be then later shared with other people, one great feature is that any edit you apply to a FilmLoop are instantly broadcast to all individuals to whom you have distributed your FilmLoop.
Other users can be invited to view a FilmLoop by clicking the "invite" button in the FilmLoop strip. Invitees can view as much as they want the image strip and they can also add comments to your FilmLoop. To get FilmLoops out to other people you can also post a clickable FilmLoop "Looplet" on Web sites and blog pages.
Multiple FilmLoops can be displayed in sequence and you have total control on how this is done. By clicking the loops button on the FilmLoop strip and then selecting the Organize My Loops option from the menu that appears, you have full control of which FilmLoops get displayed and in which sequence.
Multiple actions can also be performed on each and every image in a FilmLoop, and all of these can be easily accessed by clicking directly on any image in the FilmLoop.
The network button on the FilmLoop strip allows you to view the loops that have been made available from the FilmLoop public directory. When you click on the network button, this opens a window called Loop Organizer. The Loop Organizer displays a list of categories such as Public, Art, Entertainment, and Humor and you can click on any of these categories to subscribe on to a particular category.
FilmLoop invitees can view the loops you have invited to view either by clicking on the URL, which you have received in a mail or by entering the ticket code that you have received in the invitation mail.
The FilmLoop Player runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Home Edition, and Windows Professional. A Mac-compatible version is coming soon (Q4 2005). No Linux/Unix version has been planned.
Download FilmLoop here. (2.8 MB)
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