Webware

Because we need to ensure that silly do-it-yourself comedy will stay alive during these harrowing financial times, the magic venture capital fairies have infused JibJab.com with a $7.5 million Series C round. And by "magic venture capital fairies" I actually mean Overbrook Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and existing investor Polaris Venture Partners.

Founded in 1999 by brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, JibJab started as a hub for funny political song-and-dance videos that the two created, but in 2007 the company began an e-card service called "Starring You!" in which visitors to the site could insert photos of themselves (or their bosses!) into geeky cartoon videos. For the '08 holiday season, JibJab partnered with office supply store OfficeMax for the third annual installment of those "Elf Yourself" greeting cards that I'm sure more than a few of you were sent. (See image for embarrassing example.)

JibJab says a whopping 35 million of its holiday greeting cards were sent across the Web this winter. That's a lot of elves.

JibJab forged a deal with CNN Politics around that time last year when everyone was either thinking about Halloween or the presidential election, launching a zombie politician video creator.

The site has a business model beyond advertising and sponsorship, thank goodness: some of its content is subscription-based, and JibJab also sells additional video. To keep an "Elf Yourself" video past the holidays, for example, you can pay to download it.

"We sensed that customers would pay for access to unique, high-quality entertainment that they could use to express themselves online," co-founder and CEO Gregg Spiridellis said in a release. "With this thesis well proven, and the capital from this financing now in place, we plan to aggressively innovate the online greetings category in the months and years ahead."

Hey, guys, I have a suggestion: recession-themed dance video greeting cards!

This post was updated on Friday at 7:26 a.m. PT to note OfficeMax's creation of "Elf Yourself," which is now presented by JibJab.

As much fun as it is to grumble at the scheduled sentimentality of the most schlocky of Hallmark holidays while shaking your fist at the spiraling costs of demonstrating said socialization, why not try a new approach to challenging the rose brigade's status quo?

Polka Networks offers lovebirds a chance to show true heart by customizing an e-card that makes a charitable promise in lieu of a gift. Instead of buying electronics for your mate, pledge to purchase an acre of rain forest, salaries for nannies in Chinese orphanages, or a handmade necklace that helps trafficked children in Ghanaian fishing villages (links to organizations included). Or simply commit to planting sustainable flowers, baking cupcakes, or tucking the kids into bed for a week.

Romantics can choose from four layouts on the prehistoric Web 1.0 site for the Random Acts of Love service, plus a quote and almost 50 gift selections. All e-cards ship on the 14th, so hurry--it's all too likely the site's visitors will overpower its servers.

For pure camp, JibJab features amusing stripteases for him and her that are just passable for the office, though eyebrows may rise a notch or two higher for "his" mating dance. You may want to include a warning. It's not hard to see why recipients of the lady-tease get a better deal, and men, I hope you know better than to do this at home. Or this. But learn this number, and I'm yours forever.

We're total suckers for video products that let us use our face. A few months back, Caroline put my head on a woman's body with the launch of JibJab's Starring You service, and shortly before that, Rafe played around with Fix8, which lets you overlay live video with avatar and object overlays. Both are vastly different technologies, but the idea is the same: quick entertainment with very little effort on the part of the end user. Along the same lines, Gizmoz, which has been providing 3-D face-mapping technology to the masses since late May, is launching a new product this morning called "be a star."

Be a star is essentially a really simple way to insert yourself into a variety of clips from TV shows, movies, and music videos. Using the same technology found in its basic talking avatar service, Gizmoz will take any photo of someone's face you throw at it, and convert it into a 3-D head that's capable of minute facial movements. You can sort through clips that use just one user face, or multiples that let you add up to three different people. The resulting video can then be stuck on a social networking page, or shared with a simple link.

For now you're limited to 10 clips, but the company is planning to add more every day. Eventually Gizmoz aims to let users use the same technology on any of its videos, allowing you to paste your friend's head on the family dog, or onto the Thanksgiving turkey.

I've embedded a sample video below, which I put together in just a few minutes. The facial processor only hiccupped once, but it was because of my crummy photo of Rafe's head. If you've already got processed 3-D heads in your gallery, it takes a little over a minute to put the entire thing together. My one qualm is that while depending on the original clip, the heads tend to be tiny and the video only comes in one size, although I think you'll agree this is a pretty great way to make embarrassing videos of your boss.

I got a little bit obsessed with JibJab.com's "Starring You!" video creator when it allowed me to create videos of my co-workers dancing the Charleston in drag while horrifically bored on a slow news day. (Josh Lowensohn looks awesome in flapper garb.)

Now, as I've just learned, the site has created a politics-meets-Halloween gimmick so that you can edit a likeness of yourself into mini-movies called "Night of the Living Democrats" or "Night of the Living Republicans" and battle zombified versions of politicians from the political party you abhor the most. The new project, launched Tuesday, is in partnership with CNN Politics--why exactly, we're not sure. And zombies are a big deal, in case you couldn't tell.

Some of us are politically jaded enough so that we'd rather battle undead incarnations of our office-mates or in-laws (since we have to do that every day anyway), but hey, Bill Clinton and Trent Lott will have to do for now.

JibJab, created eight years ago by brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, made a name for itself by Photoshopping the heads of world leaders onto cartoon bodies and turning it all into elaborate song-and-dance numbers. The original "Starring You!" mashups launched over the summer, and the Spiridellis brothers gleefully cite the statistic that over one million of the custom JibJab avatars have been created.

I guess there are more than a few of us who are inclined to procrastinate sometimes.

Last night, members of the Los Angeles tech community (and one Bono impersonator) gathered at the Air Conditioned Supper Club in Venice for Twiistup 2, the second of a series of Valley-style blowouts for Southern California Web companies and geeks. In front of a backlit, Mondrian-style bar, attendees of the sold-out event talked tech, networked, and vetted business plans over music spun by DJ Quickie Mart. I had a chance to talk with most of the event's "showoffs," two of which--community site Faqqly and the social shopping site ThisNext--we've already covered. Here's a brief rundown of the others:

Head sponsor JibJab was demonstrating their new "Starring You!" feature, which lets you add your own caricature cutouts to JibJab-style videos. Read Caroline McCarthy's take on it here.

Fafarazzi is like fantasy sports, but with celebrities. You create or join a league, draft celebrities to your team, then score points when members of your team show up in gossip blogs and entertainment rags. Today, the company launched a second league, Dirtlocker, which focuses on the off-the-field antics of sports personalities. The snob in me wanted to look down on these gossip-oriented game sites, but even I have to admit they are a fun and addictive way for consumers of celebrity "news," who are following and discussing these events anyway, to incorporate a social element into their pastime. I fear for some of my colleagues' productivity (you know who you are).

CampusBug is a "social learning network"--think MySpace meets Blackboard--where students can connect with each other, access learning materials and practice tests, and even earn money by answering peer questions. Paycheck or no, the site's main challenge will be convincing learners to join when they can already get a lot of these features elsewhere.

CrowdRules is a market-testing platform where members can upload video, images, text, or audio, and submit questions to "the crowd" (that is, other members) for voting. Though variations on this theme exist elsewhere on the Web--FunnyOrDie comes immediately to mind--CrowdRules seems intent on offering flexibility for content beyond videos as well as working with media and entertainment companies for paid market research.

And finally, online backup company ElephantDrive was on site to talk up a new feature, launching next week, that will allow for secure data sharing and group collaboration over the network.

Trust me--I know procrastination. But this one really takes the cake.

JibJab, as you probably know already, made a name for itself by creating corny (yet socially relevant) musical skits that superimposed the heads of politicians and celebrities onto cartoon bodies. Now that user-generated content is nothing new, it almost seems overdue that JibJab would introduce a "make your own" feature. But now, at long last, here it is: "JibJab Starring You!"

The concept, at least according to the creators, is to JibJab yourself by uploading a photo, easily crop it with the Flash-based tools to make a bobblehead-like image, and then revel at the absurdity of watching yourself dance the Charleston.

But don't let that fool you. The real purpose of "Starring You!" is to dig up photos of your boss and put them into any number of the dorky dance videos. As a bonus, most of them require two dancers, so you can use the likenesses of multiple co-workers--or choose from a small library of celebrity heads that range from Donald Trump to Barack Obama.

As a demonstration, I present to you Josh Lowensohn, Hot Mamacita. (No, Josh isn't my boss, but he's more...photogenic.)

BOSTON--So-called user generated content is being built into the business models of forward-looking media companies as they venture out onto the Web, according to experts who spoke today at the MIT Enterprise Forum's Brave New Web conference on Wednesday. (See this CNET News.com story.)

Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of online video company Brightcove, said that Web is a tiny fraction of the overall media industry but that's changing because media companies are starting to distribute video over the Web. Brightcove itself is building social media features to its video distribution system which will allow people to post content or chat online.

During a panel after Allaire's talk, experts in Web media said that media firms are trying new advertising models to make money online--and that includes embracing user-generated content.

"We see user-generated content as a farm league," said Laurie Baird, director of technology partnerships for Turner Broadcasting System. "Good content will come to the top and those who have an economic mind (will find ways to make money)."

JibJab, for example, made very funny satirical videos for the Web around the last presidential election that were very popular. Now it's doing that same work but getting paid for it, she said.

Of course, there is this little problem of copyright infringement in Web media. What is called user-generated content is often redistributed TV clips and the like.

So how are online media companies going to make money in this environment where the consumer is participant as well?

Ads, said Alex Laats, the CEO of Podzinger, which makes a search engine for audio and video content. The trick is aggregating several niche communities to create a volume that becomes interesting to advertisers, he said.

"Once ads can deliver campaigns against user-generated content, then the copyright issues go away," Laats said. "Copyright issue will be solved by business models as opposed to pulling the content down."