Pixorial, Inc. » Pixorial in action

Contest Grand Prize Winner Uses Photos & Videos in the Classroom

Jim St. Marie — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 13:03:57 +0000

Pixorial is used extensively by K-12 educators #EdTech worldwide. And Megan, our Grand Prize Winner in Olathe, Kansas is an educator who uses our service in a lot of innovative ways in the classroom. Here’s her story…

“As my school’s Technology Facilitator, computer science instructor, yearbook Advisor, and an ELA (English Language Arts teacher) I have found Pixorial to be an amazing Web 2.0 tool that seamlessly integrates itself in classroom instruction and professional development.”

“The mobile applications support our BYOD program by making activities such as digital photography scavenger hunts, QR code treasure hunts, narrated photo-stories, and student created video projects possible. Teachers appreciate the easy account creation process and the ability for students to collaborate and share out their albums / work from either a desktop or mobile device.”

Like many other educators, Megan told us that she offers Pixorial as an option to her students on projects where video creation, digital photo editing, and digital storytelling are key components.

“Pixorial is an innovative tool and I’m excited to continue finding more ways to utilize the service in and out of the classroom.”

Thank you Megan for sharing your story and congratulations on winning the Samsung 50-inch 1080p Smart LED HDTV.

Personalized Photos & Videos Important to Second Place Contest Winner

Jim St. Marie — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 22:54:42 +0000

Our Share The Love contest second place prize winner is Patrick from Savannah, Georgia. He uses Pixorial in both his personal life and professionally as the Director of Technology at his school.

“Personally it makes a great photo and video editing tool for my family media. We have two little boys and tons of photos and video footage to keep track of and edit for family and friends.”

“Pixorial makes adding titles and transitions to my video so easy and its integration with Google Drive makes it even better. I can take a video on my phone, it automatically uploads to Drive, and then I pull it into Pixorial to edit and share with everyone! I love it!”

We love hearing stories like this where customers have been able to centralize the media collections that mean the most to them in our secure, integrated platform. For Patrick, it’s clear that the benefits of Pixorial have also simplified his professional life as well.

“After seeing how easy (and fun) it was to use Pixorial for photo and video editing, I have added it to my list of Google Chrome Apps that I recommend to teachers and students. Whether creating a video for a classroom project or just something fun to share with friends, Pixorial makes editing and sharing so simple (which makes my job so much easier)!

Thank you Patrick for sharing your story and congratulations on winning the Google Nexus 10 tablet.

Watch for the story about our Grand Prize Winner coming tomorrow.

Third Place Contest Winner Shares Photos From International Trip

Jim St. Marie — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 02:17:05 +0000

Yesterday, in Congratulations to our Contest Winners!, we announced the prize winners from our Share The Love contest. We thought you might be interested to learn a little more about our third place winner.

Alissa works in healthcare in Columbia, South Carolina. She recently took a group trip to Europe and India. When asked about how she uses Pixorial, Alissa told us…

“Pixorial has allowed me to share my photos with my friends that live in India and the UK and also lets me see what pictures they took!”

Our experience working with customers revealed that most have photos and videos trapped in all kinds of different devices and networks, including friends’ phones, cameras and storage locations which makes it nearly impossible for them to easily find all the media from their different activities. It’s always great to hear how Pixorial has helped solve this problem. Alissa added that…

“There have been way too many times when someone takes a bunch of photos and tells me they will send them to me later – now photo sharing is super easy and lets everyone pool their photos into one album to make up a great library that will allow us all to remember our adventures for years to come.”

“I would highly recommend Pixorial to anyone interested in doing more with their pictures and videos and also sharing them with their friends and family.”

Thank you Alissa for sharing your story and congratulations on winning the $250 Amazon Gift Card.

Stay tuned to hear about our second place winner tomorrow.

Add some fun to your pictures with the Pixorial iPhone app!

Jim St. Marie — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 02:21:47 +0000

We understand that everyone likes to have a little fun with their photos. So when we designed our photo capabilities we wanted to make sure there was an easy and fun way for you to do advanced photo editing. That’s where our partnership with Aviary comes in.

Pixorial and Aviary have partnered together to give you the best photo editing experience in the industry and to make photo sharing even better. In the Pixorial Photo & Video Sharing iOS app you can edit photos by uploading from your camera roll, selecting a photo from your library, or taking a photo straight from the app. We’ll walk you through that last one below!

1. Start by capturing a new image; open the camera by tapping the icon in the bottom bar. Make sure your camera is in photo and not video mode and click away!

2. Before saving your image tap “Edit” in the top right corner, choose the image size you would like to edit, and then you’ll be in the Photo Editor.

3. In the Photo Editor, add frames, filters and stickers, and edit size, contrast, orientation and more. To undo all edits and start over, hold your finger on the photo, then select “restore original” on the top bar, but who would want to undo this…

4. Once you’ve made all your edits, tap “Done” – now choose where to save and share your photo. Upload to an Album for the easiest of photo sharing.

5. To share your new photo tap the share icon below your photo to open the share menu.

6. Choose where to share. You can connect Facebook and Twitter for the easiest of sharing!

7. Repeat as comedically necessary. Did we mention you can make memes?

Pro Tip:
When viewing your library on mobile, use our pinch function to view more or less thumbnails:

Pinching in on the screen will zoom out and let you view as many as 20 smaller-sized thumbnails at a time.
Pinching out will zoom in and let you view 6 larger-sized thumbnails.

Set Your Videos Free: 3 Ways to Upload

admin — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 19:20:45 +0000

Here at Pixorial, it’s our mission to liberate your videos from the stuffy confines of computers and mobile devices. Once they’re in our safe and secure cloud, you can share them with anyone, anywhere – or even edit the videos online using Movie Creator.

Here are three fast and easy ways to upload your videos. (If you don’t already have a Pixorial account, sign up for free here).

From a file on your computer

Let’s say you’ve just recorded a webcam video and want to share it online. Simply sign into your Pixorial account and click “Add Video” at the top of the screen. Hit “Upload A Video” and select your webcam-recorded masterpiece. Voilá.

From a folder on your computer

Here’s another scenario you might be familiar with: you’ve just downloaded a metric boatload (that’s an official measurement) of videos from your digital camera. Usually they all wind up in a specific folder on your computer, where they’ll sit and wait for you to do something with them. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could automatically upload those videos?

You can, using our free uploader app. Simply download and install Uploader on your Mac, PC, or even Linux computer. Then you can select your camera download folder as a “Watch folder.” Any new videos that are placed in that folder will be automatically uploaded to your Pixorial account.

Uploader is also a great option any time you have lots of video on your computer. Simply choose then files you want to upload, then we’ll take care of everything in the background.

From your smartphone

OK, so you’ve just had a busy weekend that included a family BBQ and a crazy night out with some friends. You’ve wound up with plenty of video on your phone. So how can you get it uploaded?

Install our Krowds app for iOS and Android. Then click the upload button in the lower right corner of the app. Once the upload from your camera roll is finished, you can add it to an existing Krowd or a brand new one. That video is now safe in our secure cloud, and ready to be set free and shared.

Sharing and editing video online is really that easy.

One other cool thing: since you’ve uploaded those videos to Pixorial, you can now safely delete them from your devices, freeing up valuable space and making more room for your life’s moments and memories.

Notes from Laura: Some interesting ways people are using Krowds – that you might want to steal!

admin — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 19:25:28 +0000

Over the past several days, I’ve been browsing through the many, many Krowds that have been created using our Krowds app, and I wanted to share some of the really cool uses I’ve come across. If these might work for you, please feel free to steal the idea! Music teachers showing off their students’ progress: a few music teachers (piano, violin, guitar) have started Krowds to feature the progress their students are making as they go from Chopsticks to Chopin. I’d imagine this would work great for anyone who teaches a performance skill — because you can really see the progress someone’s making. New home-shopping: when you’re looking to buy a new house, you tend to tour a lot of places, and drive by many more. Marco used Krowds to try to keep track of all the homes he and his wife toured, so they could compare notes later. (I also used Krowds this way recently, because we were house-hunting while my husband was in a cast with a broken foot! So I did most of the first-pass recon on possible houses, and he was able to check the videos to see what he liked. This helped us minimize how much time he had to spend hobbling on crutches to tour possible homes.) Tracking weight loss and fitness changes: Seems that a few personal trainers are using Krowds to monitor their workout client’s progress. I’m not sure how this will play out over many months, but so far it’s pretty obvious that a few people are having some killer success getting fit with their trainers — and video is a lot more compelling than photos because you can see people in action lifting weights and running on the treadmill, too! Collecting treasured family videos: This seems to be the most common use by far. I’ve seen many Krowds people are using to collect all manner of videos, including a lot that look like they were digitized from old-format VHS or videocamera tapes. It’s fun to see all the cool hairstyles and glasses from the ’80′s! (P.S. – did you know Pixorial can help you get your old-format vintage media digitized?) Sports: We’ve also seen a few sports teams using Pixorial to collect footage of games and practices. We’ve always figured this would be a perfect use for Krowds, because anyone can contribute video, even while they’re at the game. Capturing vacation memories: Phil and his fiancee took an amazing vacation to Italy, and they used a Krowd to collect videos of all the beautiful places they visited — and shared it with family and friends, so they could all see what they were missing. (I am still jealous!) How are YOU using Krowds? Tell us and you might get an Amazon.com gift card! Shoot an email with a link to your Krowd to *protected email*. Every week or so, I’ll select someone to receive an Amazon.com gift card for sharing their Krowd with us. We really want to know how YOU are using this cool app! Have a lovely rest of your week — and be sure to shoot some video! Laura Higgins SVP of Sales and Marketing, Pixorial

This Story Explains Why We Exist

admin — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 05:44:41 +0000

Ever since Pixorial was founded in 2007, it’s been our mission to give people the power to protect and share their most treasured memories. Our users count on Pixorial for all sorts of things – from tweeting short video clips, to sending birthday messages on Facebook, to creating lengthy video projects. For some users, Pixorial brings timeless, priceless moments back to life. This was really driven home by a message we received from a Pixorial user named Sharon. We shared her story with everyone on the Pixorial team, and it made such an impression on us that we asked her permission to share it with you. Since Father’s Day is right around the corner, we thought this would be the perfect time to highlight Sharon’s story about her dad: *** “Pixorial provided my family the opportunity to ‘see’ my father during the time that he used his Super 8 movie camera. It was difficult to find very much footage that he was in because he was usually the cameraman. There were many reels of Super 8 film that we found in the house and even the projector. But sadly, the projector was out of commission so we had no way to see what was on the film. My sister and I had cleaned his house before we sold it and decided who wanted what before we sold the house last year. I wanted the films because I hoped to be able to send them to someone to convert to a CD format. One day I found your website and decided to try it. We were so pleased that the films were still able to be converted with somewhat reduced quality from the first time we had seen them but still contained treasured memories of our family from 1967 to 1990. I was able to edit the many reels of film to two CDs of pictures of my father. He was able to see them before he passed away in February. In March of 2012, the CDs were shown at my father’s celebration of his life. They were the highlight of the celebration. My relatives were happy to see Dad in his younger days and then with all of his grandchildren from birth to 1990. - Sharon” 10.mp4 * * * This is it. This is why we’re so passionate about what we do. When you boil it all down, technology isn’t just about the newest devices or coolest software. It’s about making life’s most treasured moments last forever. Like Sharon, we realize that the media format isn’t what matters; it’s all about what you get to see on the screen – those wonderful memories of someone important to you, like your dad. Many thanks to Sharon for sharing her story! If you’d like to share a story about your dad, check out our Father’s Day contest over on Facebook.