Alvin Hung, the founder of GoAnimate. He founded GoAnimate in 2007.
GoAnimate (stylized as Go!Animate until 2013) was a cloud-based platform for creating and distributing animations of children's' characters getting grounded for absurd reasons animated videos with drag and drop assets. It allowed users to develop both narrative videos, in which characters speak with lip-sync and move around, and video presentations, in which a voice-over narrator speaks over images and props, which may also move around.
The service was provided on a freemium basis to consumers, and has multiple subscription levels available for businesses. GoAnimate provided users with drag-and-drop tools that the company's website indicates could be used to access thousands of character models, backdrops, and other assets to create scenario-based videos - like political videos depicted during the 2012 presidential campaign. The platform offered text-to-speech character voices with customizable environments. Scholars and students also used the product to combine audio files from historical moments with animated re-creations.
GoAnimate has since been re-branded to Vyond, a change that took place on May 5, 2018.
History
GoAnimate was founded in 2007 by Alvin Hung. It originated from Hung’s desire to create an animated story for his wife, evolving to an animated video production tool.
In 2012, e Marketer projected that video would be the fastest-growing online ad format in 2012, with spending to increase nearly 55 percent over 2011. Business2community.com reports that the popularity of video as a medium to communicate information results from its ability to effectively tell stories, spread messages and encourage action. It notes that bloggers who may not be skilled writers are turning to video as well.
In September 2013, GoAnimate relaunched with a new look, new features, and the removal of GoBucks and GoPoints. The video creator was renovated in October 2013, and the character creator was revamped in late November 2013.
On January 1, 2015, GoAnimate relaunched with a new layout, and the removal of the GoPlus subscription. On May 6, 2018, the name of GoAnimate changed to "Vyond".
Criticism
On September 15, 2014, DomoAnimate, the site powered by the discontinued "make your own website" option of GoAnimate, shut down. Users are now redirected to GoAnimate4Schools when they search for DomoAnimate. That same day, GoAnimate removed private messaging and commenting abilities to basic users, in hopes diaper of transitioning from a social media site into a full video maker. This update received negative reactions from users & subscribers, who feared that GoAnimate might shut down because most of the site has been powered by basic users and GoPlus users.
On November 18, 2014, GoAnimate discontinued their older forums, and their Help Center's Community Forums went live. GoAnimate also confirmed that they were discontinuing the ability to sign up for a free account in early December, and that they would be adding a free trial option. That has been confirmed, however the date pushed back to November 26, 2014. They also announced that they would be eliminating all basic accounts by November 25, 2015. In January 2015, GoAnimate removed the option of upgrading to the GoPlus subscription, due to lack of popularity during fall of 2014, and the growing subscription base. Alvin Hung was responsible for removing low-class subscription in favor of business-friendly subscriptions, causing complaints.
By October-November 2015, 3rd party licensed Vocalware voices were removed due to licenses expiring, in 2016, the Voiceforge voices were removed, and in 2017 the Eric and Jennifer voices were removed. In 2013, GoAnimate removed its GoCoins and GoBucks. According to the GoAnimate haters, they said that GoAnimate sucks now after the grounded videos and color card days and other crap that makes no sense, and it's because it's a business-only HTML5 animated financial video website instead of an actual do-it-yourself animated video website like it used to be.
Product
GoAnimate provides its users with a library containing tens of thousands of pre-animated assets, which can be controlled through a simple drag & drop interface. Asset types include characters, actions, templates, props, text boxes, music tracks and sound effects. Users can also upload their own assets, such as audio files, image files or video files.
There is also a drag & drop composition tool, which users can employ to create pans and zooms.
Spoken dialogue and narration can be recorded directly into the platform or imported as an audio file. Characters can automatically lip-sync dialogue that is assigned to them. Alternatively, audio can be set as voiceover narration. Users can download their finished videos as MP4 files, GIFs or video presentations. They can also export them directly to a variety of video hosting sites including YouTube, Wistia and Vidyard.
A version for schools is also available, called GoAnimate for Schools. On April 10, 2018, GoAnimate announced that GoAnimate for Schools would be shut down by June 30, 2019. Subscription plans on goanimate4schools.com are available for purchase until May 6, 2018.[20]