If you do sell to businesses you are breaking the terms of the license. Animoto have however brought out a special license to get around this – here is what they said to me about it. This is what they told me :

As our commercial terms of service do limit distribution of videos to other businesses, we recently launched a product addressing your needs called the Reseller Account. As an authorized Animoto Reseller you can provide video creation services to other businesses including restaurants, hotels, retailers, real estate agents, and even photographers.

The account costs $499 per year and allows you to distribute videos to businesses for a further $25 per video payment to Animoto.

So to become a reseller you have to pay Animoto $499 per year plus$25 per video sold.

A Better Alternative to Animoto

Enter ProShow Web – the web version of ProShow Gold. The ProShow Web service has been launched by a company well versed in video production and with a long history of the same. I think the ProSHow Web solution is better than Animoto’s – by a long way (use of text, transitions, video and general control is better, cheaper). You can build short slideshows with the free version, and their PRO account allows you to sell the videos you make to whoever you want. $150 per year is the cost of the PRO license compared to Animoto’s $249 + $499 + $25 per go.

Here is my first attempt at using ProShow Web. Note that because I am using the free account, the transition options are limited. But I can see that if I upgraded, I’d have more control.

What is nice is that you don’t have the same character restrictions that Animoto places on text slides. Pro Show Web allows up to 242 characters. And (although I haven’t been able to include one here), if you have a video clip (max 30 seconds per clip – but you can have as many as you want in a single video), you can choose to keep the sound or mute it.

If you keep the sound it plays against the background music very effectively and this means you can probably use ProShow Web for a better quality of promotional video. One where you actually can be heard to say something.

And finally, like Animoto, the video you get is different each time you rebuild it.

I’m Using Google Chrome

I am using Google Chrome. I figured that the problem would go away if I used another browser, but I like Chrome so didn’t want to do that. However that is an option for you if you’re not wedded to Chrome as I am.

Here’s a short video showing you what I did. I hope it works for you.

I fixed my problem by doing the following :

1. Logging out of my WordPress site or sites if you have more than one logged in
2. Closing all my Google Chrome browser windows – even the minimised ones
3. Open up a new Google Chrome browser window and make sure it only has only tab open
4. Click the spanner at the top right of your Google Chrome browser window.
5. Click on Options which opens up a new page
6. Click on Under The Hood (on the left hand side of the window)
7. Check everything except passwords and auto-fill form data
8. Click on Clear Browsing Data and do it from the Beginning Of Time
9. Close Google Chrome, and start it up again

It seems there is a bug over at WordPress.com, but the new is that they’re upgrading us to the stats provided by jetpack pretty soon, so why not take the opportunity to install the JetPack plugin now.

To do this

1. Deactivate the WordPress.com stats plugin
2. Install the Jet Pack Plugin which you can find here
3. Activate Jetpack and you’ll see from the dashboard that they’ve included a lot of new stuff.

The style of the stats output is like that provided to WordPress.Con users already and JetPack adds some content sharing features as well as a handy writing style checker.

You’re working towards creating a serious income for yourself online, or you run an offline business with a website describing your services. Either way you’d be daft not to sign up today – pretty urgently actually to this deal at Appsumo.

Appsumo for those who don’t know, is a software deals website where startups and companies wanting to increase their exposure allow you to buy their stuff at knock down prices. All you have to do is sign up at Appsumo and you’ll be emailed whenever they have a deal.

For example, we recently got one year of membership at GoSquared for $50. This was for their Growing Pains level membership which is normally $24.99 per month, so that was a saving of almost $250.

At the time of writing, there is a great bundle of software apps available for $99 on Appsumo, including one or two gems. I’m buy the bundle because I am particularly interested in the following components.

• SlideDeck
• GinzaMetrics
• KissMetrics
• CrazyEgg
• UserVoice
• ZenCoder

Your favourites may be different, but those are the applications I’ll be looking into first.