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Givit makes video editing, sharing easier

Every year at Macworld/iWorld I see another great video application for iOS. Last year one of the Best of Show winners was Game Your Video, a nifty app for adding effects to video. While I enjoyed the app, it wasn't very straightforward, and editing wasn't a great experience. Givit, on the other hand, almost nails the simplicity of finding and adding those moments you capture to a cohesive timeline and gives you some worthwhile sharing options (in other words: Not just Facebook). In fact, the full name is Givit Video Highlighter. That's pretty much what it is, but there are some power tools lurking under the surface.

First, you can take whatever video you want using your iDevice. Next, you bring in your clips and find the moments you want, and select what are called "highlights" -- which then pop into a small timeline (although the metaphor is not emphasized, as it is more familiar to video editors). I was impressed at how easy it was to find clips and add them to the timeline.

There are a few video effects possible, like speeding up and slowing down video, and tricks like "instant replay" will loop a certain number of times while also adding slow-motion. I'm told there may be more effects later, but if you shoot family or sports videos, Givit is already a powerful option.

Unlike Vine, there isn't really a specific time limit. A person at the booth said "they could be 30 minutes" but I didn't get a hard limit on the time.

For now, Givit is a bit limited to streamlining editing, adding some effects if you wish, and putting some music into the video. I'm told they are adding titles and the ability to import images soon.

The sharing and collaboration features are outstanding, however. While I didn't get a chance to try them out here at Macworld, the team behind Givit has some experience working on the Flip cameras which had sharing tools built in (after they were purchased and subsumed by Cisco).

Of course you have your standard Facebook, YouTube and Twitter sharing. Givit supports cards on Twitter, which makes for a more pleasant experience. But Givit also provides a private sharing option. Just upload your video to Givit and you'll get an email which you can send to others. Anyone wanting to view the video will need to set up a free account, but it's not a bad option for sharing family videos.

Even better, via the web interface you can connect Givit to your Dropbox or SkyDrive account. You can then drop video clips there, open them up in the app and edit the videos. This collaborative video editing on iOS is a wonderful idea, and I'm not aware of another app which does it this well. If you're shooting video at one location and need to quickly get it to your editor at another location, this may the easiest thing to use to get the job done.

If you happen to upload more than 5 GB, Givit has a premium storage offering at just under US$30 a year. Like Flickr, if you are a power user this will be a great and relatively cheap option.

Givit isn't perfect, as I found the UI could use just a bit more polish and style. But Givit has two great things going for it: It is one of the easiest video editing apps I've ever seen, and collaborative editing is a powerful tool for content creators. As a free app to try and use, I suggest giving it a spin.