Collaborate in real time with Cozimo

Cozimo is a tool for real-time collaboration around photos and videos.

It promises tight synchronization--at the exact frame level in videos--when multiple viewers are online, and a timeline-based annotation system that sounds a bit like Viddler's video-commenting feature.

Founder Joshua Rosen, who presented his product at Demo 08 Wednesday morning, said the genesis for Cozimo was a bit of desperation. Working on the artwork for the movie Peter Pan several years ago, Rosen and his team were split up all over the world and finding it hard to find time to edit images and video for the film. His boss said that if he don't find a way to get it done, they'd all be fired. Rosen's solution? Cozimo.

It works like this: An image is sent to your e-mail by one of your colleagues. When you open the image, it launches Cozimo's collaboration tool. Anyone invited to the project can mark up and leave comments on the image or video in question. Chat windows appear to talk in real time about the changes.

It also works with video clips. Everyone online sees the video play in real time and any can leave notes on particular frames. It has a clean, simple interface and appears very intuitive, but Rosen is not the only one to come up with this idea. See also: ConceptShare, Octopz, and ReviewBasics.