Aaron's Life

AnyClip: It's a Winner

jared:

I went to the NY Tech Meetup last night and got to see a demo of AnyClip for the first time.  I’ve been psyched about this project since I first heard about it (send me an invite!) and what I saw exceeded my expectations.

AnyClip is a tool that is useful.  Hallelujah.  We need more useful products being developed.  It answers a question that I frequently ask: “Where can I find that clip from that movie?”  People love movies - it’s a multi-billion dollar industry and that’s not going to change anytime soon.  Not only does AnyClip provide instant gratification in finding a scene you’ve been aching to see again, but it rekindles an interest in  a movie.  Both of these points are important.  You log on to AnyClip with a mission, and you leave with passion.

AnyClip is data heavy.  It crowdsources and uses algorithms to find the most relevant clip(s) for your search query.  Last night, Nate typed in “flux capacitor” and the first result was the infamous Back to the Future scene.  This morning I typed in “flux capacitor” on YouTube to see if it would generate the same results.  The first two results were videos of people’s replications of flux capacitors (they failed - and I don’t care), and the third result was titled “Hot Girl wants Flux Capacitor.”  It’s obvious that AnyClip is a powerful tool for 1) finding desired clips through keyword search queries and 2) finding relevant clips through general interest search queries (e.g. typing in Times Square will yield multiple movie clips shot in Times Square or containing content/dialogue around Times Square).

So who gives a shit about this product aside from movie geeks?  You don’t have to be a movie geek to like movies.  At least once a week I find myself thinking about a particular scene.  I’d go rewatch it if it wasn’t such a painstaking and time-consuming process.  AnyClip provides immediate gratification.  It’s like that song that’s stuck in your head and the only way to let it out is to figure out what it is and then listen to it.  Same thing goes for movie clips.

The only issue with AnyClip is that it’s an absolute legal disaster.  The only way I see this project being able to sustain itself is if it goes the Spotify route.  It’s going to need the consent and support of major movie studios.  Ultimately, I think it should be the studios who back the project, just like the record labels backed Spotify.  Like I mentioned before, AnyClip is a service that rekindles the flame between a consumer and a movie - this is a win for studios.  I think there’s a viable business model in there somewhere, whether it’s a premium service or it capitalizes on affiliate revenue sharing with major brands/sellers like Netflix and Amazon.  Either way, I’m excited to see this project grow some legs.  I think it’s poised to go far.

Introducing (and the story behind) the AnyClip Logo

anyclip:

Today, we’re very excited to unveil the new AnyClip logo and branding.

This logo came out of a long but enjoyable process, which started back in May when we picked AnyClip as our name.

Soon thereafter, we held a logo contest on Worth1000 because we hadn’t yet hired a designer on staff; we needed an identity for presentations and thought a contest would be fun. While we hoped a design we’d absolutely love would come out of the process, we also knew it was unlikely. In the end, we settled on this logo (on the right) as our first version, mostly because it was the only one AnyClip management could agree on. We liked the typeface — sure — though we weren’t totally sure about the film strip at the top or the colors.

Then, towards the end of June, we hired Gabi Moore to be our Senior Designer. She got to work on the new identity right away.

In our first brainstorming meeting, Gabi collected data and listened to Aaron (our CEO), Ohad (COO), and me (VP Product) talk about our brand and what we wanted to convey. Out of that, words like “comprehensive,” “definitive,” “fast,” and “sophisticated” emerged as values we wanted to exude. Another thing we realized was that we didn’t necessarily want to be too “filmy” in our logo. While our main focus will be film for the foreseeable future, we of course realized that we could also move into other areas some day. Also, after watching how people reacted to the Worth1000 logos, I knew that explicitly “filmy” logos elicited very, very strong reactions — positive and negative — from our team. I wanted something more neutral, so we thought keeping any film references highly nuanced would be important. See below for a summary Gabi put together from that meeting.

Now that we had direction, Gabi got to work.

At first Gabi just played around with typefaces and graphical concepts. Here’s one from that first batch I kinda liked:

In round 2, Gabi started playing with colors and expanding the “clip” concept as part of the logo. See the next example:

At this point, however, Aaron added a new requirement into the mix (and a good one, in my opinion): that the logo be super legible.

On that note, we also remembered how much we liked the font from the Worth1000 logo we picked. The typeface, Myriad, would now enter as the dominant fonts in iterations that followed. Here’s one from round three that Gabi and I liked a lot:

Unfortunately, as fun as that logo was, when we put it into HTML wireframes and shared it with trusted peers, it was clear that it was too busy and would detract from the rest of the app. We still liked some of the colors, though, so this next logo — which also continued to play around with some abstract ideas about the emergence of clips from our database — was one that we liked, but definitely knew at the time wasn’t “the one:”

Then, a real breakthrough occurred. As Gabi and I were brainstorming, I started thinking about icons and which ones represented what AnyClip is all about. I should also note that we started off very icon averse. We generally agreed that icons are over-used and not abstract enough. The classic examples of this in video companies, we thought, were the play button and the TV.

“But what if you combined some icons?” I thought. Right about this time Dima (AnyClip’s resident mathematician) was putting the finishing touches on the first version of our search algorithm, and every day we were realizing how important our search will be for people to get to “any clip” out of our library of movies. So, here I did a 180 on the iconography issue and proposed the combination of a magnifying glass — the universal symbol of search — and a play button. “Search and play, any clip.” From that, Gabi created this idea:

At this point Gabi and I both feel in love with the magnifying glass and play button. But we weren’t sure about the legibility of the icon as a circle and Gabi was getting rather convincing that my love of bright blues, whites, and grays was boring and over played.

Over the next few days, Gabi continued coming out with iterations, including a square version of the now official “AnyClip icon” as seen below, using a unique color palate which began growing on all of us:

However, while we liked the symmetry of the square, we felt the magnifying glass got lost a bit and it looked too much just like a play button… not the unique combination we liked so much. So, we began solely focusing in on a wider icon arrangement.

Finally, yesterday, Gabi and I made our pick and presented our recommendation to Aaron for final approval. With Aaron on board, the AnyClip logo was official, our landing page was updated with a new design, and Gabi has moved on, already implementing the identity into other collateral. We now know the identity of AnyClip.

By the way, Gabi also managed to get a very nuanced film reference into the logo. We’ll keep it a secret for now, but if you can figure it out, let us know.

On the Frozen Tundra

The downtown Giants wrapped up their season today in frigid conditions with an 18-8 pasting of the Yorkville Eagles.  This gave the Peanuts program some hope with a respectable 4-5 outcome.  Winning three out of their final 4 games, the Peantus will enter next year with a chance to compete for the conference’s perennial powers Bayside Raiders and Brooklyn Skyhakws

Kickoff temperature was 31 F, but with wind chill we were playing this bad boy in the low twenties.  Joe ran an elegant reverse for the first touchdown, followed by Michael Linahan (6 or 7 toucdowns on season) bouncing a beautiful run down the left hand sideline and finally Ajay “Spike” turned in a bruising 35 yard run of his own for his first touchdown of the season.

Ry Cohen played more fullback and tight end today in an effort to let some other kids have a chane to carry the football.  While discouraged about this at halftime, he rallied to throw some vicious blocks in the second half and probably had about 35 yards on 6 or 7 carries.  Cohen closed out the season with 650 yards rushing in 9 games and 7 touchdowns.  Both are were team highs.

Thoughts from Georgia

She just told me that she’s never going to college because she, “Wants to be a kid forever.”

golf clubs are imploding

Got an email from New jersey national.  They are struggling to get members.  18,000 initiation now paid over two years.  I think it was 30 k paid in two installments as recently as 3 months ago…

Now is the time to join a club.