Vyond facts for kids
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Formerly
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GoAnimate (2007–2018) |
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| Private | |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Founder | Alvin Hung |
| Headquarters | 2 East 3rd Avenue,
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United States
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Key people
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| Services | Video production |
| Owner | GoAnimate, Inc. |
Vyond is an online platform that helps you create animated videos. It used to be called GoAnimate until 2018. This platform lets you make videos using characters, props, and sounds, all stored online (which is what "cloud-based" means). Alvin Hung created it in 2007, and it's developed by a company called GoAnimate, Inc., located in San Mateo, California, USA.
Contents
How Vyond Started
Vyond began as GoAnimate in 2007. The first version of the GoAnimate website became available in mid-2008.
Early Projects and Growth
In May 2009, a special program called DomoAnimate was launched. It allowed users to create animations based on the popular Japanese character Domo. However, DomoAnimate closed down on September 15, 2014.
In March 2011, GoAnimate joined YouTube Create. This was a set of tools available to people who made videos for YouTube. Being part of YouTube Create helped GoAnimate become more popular. This suite of apps was later retired in early 2013.
A U.S. office for GoAnimate opened in San Francisco in June 2011. In late August 2011, GoAnimate for Schools was launched. This was a special version of GoAnimate designed to be safe for schools. It had features for privacy, security, and managing groups of students. In October 2011, special characters for the 2012 U.S. Election became very popular.
New Features for Businesses
On March 1, 2012, GoAnimate introduced the "Business Friendly Theme." This was the first of several themes designed for businesses. In April 2012, GoAnimate launched its first paid plans for businesses. These plans offered features like downloading videos in high quality (1080p), removing the GoAnimate logo, and new business-focused visual styles. These new plans helped GoAnimate gain even more popularity.
By July 2013, people had created over ten million videos using the GoAnimate platform.
Changes to the Brand
On September 16, 2013, GoAnimate changed its logo. They removed the exclamation mark from it. On the same day, the website got a new look and feel. Also, virtual currencies like GoBucks and GoPoints were removed.
Towards the end of 2013, GoAnimate added "paper cutout" characters from Common Craft, a company known for explainer videos. In April 2014, new business plans were launched that allowed multiple people to work together. These plans included tools for administrators and features for group work. Around the same time, GoAnimate also released another business theme called "Whiteboard Animation."
By the end of 2014, GoAnimate had a huge library of over 10,000 items, including new characters like Supreme Court justices. In 2015, an office in Taiwan was opened, making it GoAnimate's third location after Hong Kong and San Francisco.
In May 2015, GoAnimate announced plans to expand further. During the summer of 2015, social features like favorites, comments, and messages were removed from the site. GoAnimate then started to focus more on helping businesses and marketing professionals.
Moving to HTML5 and Renaming
On October 19, 2015, GoAnimate announced a big change: they would switch from Adobe Flash to HTML5 animation. HTML5 allows videos to work on mobile devices. Older themes that didn't work with HTML5, like Lil' Peepz, Comedy World, Anime, Stick Figure, and Cartoon Classics, were removed. GoAnimate for Schools kept the Flash-based themes until July 26, 2016.
On November 25, 2015, GoAnimate changed its free plan to a 14-day trial. After the trial, users needed to pay for a subscription to create or edit videos. By the end of 2015, the company had over 50 employees.
On March 31, 2016, GoAnimate and GoAnimate for Schools stopped using VoiceForge voices.
On May 6, 2018, the GoAnimate platform was officially renamed Vyond. The company that develops Vyond is still called "GoAnimate, Inc."
On May 6, 2019, Vyond announced that the older video maker would be retired in December 2019. This was because Adobe Flash support was ending on December 31, 2020. All user accounts were automatically switched to Vyond Studio on August 14, 2019.
On May 3, 2023, Vyond announced Vyond Go. This is an artificial intelligence (AI) feature that creates videos based on what users type in, similar to ChatGPT. The first public test version was released on June 28, 2023. All users can access it, but they can only use it three times every 24 hours.
In September 2023, Vyond announced that the Oddcast voices would be removed a month later.
What Vyond Offers
Vyond gives its users a huge collection of pre-made animated items. You can control these items using a simple drag-and-drop system. These items include characters, actions, ready-made templates, props, text boxes, music, and sound effects. Users can also upload their own audio, image, or video files. There's also a tool to create camera movements like pans and zooms.
You can record spoken words or narration directly into the platform. You can also upload audio files. Characters can automatically move their mouths to match the dialogue you give them. Or, you can set audio as a voiceover for your video. When you finish your video, you can download it as an MP4 file, a GIF, or a video presentation.
Vyond for Schools
There was also a version of Vyond called GoAnimate for Schools. On April 10, 2018, Vyond announced that GoAnimate for Schools would close on June 30, 2019. On that same day, GoAnimate removed its 14-day free trial for the schools' site. Buying new subscriptions or renewing old ones on Goanimate4schools.com stopped on May 6, 2018. The service officially ended on June 30, 2019.
Vyond Go AI Feature
Vyond also offers Vyond Go, an artificial intelligence-based feature. This tool automatically creates videos from prompts that users provide.
In 2024, an Android app for Vyond became available.
How Vyond is Used
A 2014 article in the Journal of Management Education described GoAnimate as the top software for individuals, organizations, and schools to make and share animated videos. As of March 2024, Vyond has over 20,000 customers. This includes 65% of the Fortune 500 companies, which are the 500 largest companies in the United States.
Vyond is often used by businesses for marketing and corporate education (training employees). GoAnimate for Schools was promoted as a way to make lessons more interesting through animation. It also helped students bring their stories to life. Vyond has also been used by fans to create online parodies of cartoon shows.
Since 2022, Vyond has been temporarily unavailable for users in Russia and Russian-occupied territories.
Images for kids
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A comparison of the older GoAnimate character made in Comedy World (left)
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and a current Vyond character made in Contemporary (right)
See also
In Spanish: Vyond para niños
