PoprocksDotCom, the blog of Jess Barron

September 30, 2009

A Year of Yoostar

It's been a year since I left Yahoo! to join Yoostar. It was a huge leap to leave a company of more than 10,000 people to join one with less than 30 people. When I joined Yoostar, the product itself was in the conceptual stage. Now one year later, we've launched a website with thousands of user-created videos, and we've put a consumer technology product into Bloomingdales stores nationwide. In just 2 more weeks, Yoostar will be in Best Buy, and after that in Amazon. What a wild ride.

It's so exciting that after a year of hard work (and secrecy about what we were up to), this is all finally debuting to the public.

Here's a "Blues Brothers" scene I acted in the other day in the 5 spare minutes I had after breakfast. As a longtime blogger, I love that it's easy to embed my Yoostar performances into any blog and share them on Facebook as well. (That is one thing that many people aren't aware of yet, so I felt I should demonstrate.)

And the press reviews of the Yoostar system have been resoundingly positive:

Most recently, on the "Rachael Ray Show" on Sept 19, Rachael donned an Amish outfit to use Yoostar to act opposite Harrison Ford in a scene from "Witness." As you can see from watching the video segment, Rachael was incredibly excited about using Yoostar and told her audience, "This is big!"

In the New York Times Gadget wise blog, Peter Wayner wrote in his post "Yoostar Brings the Green Screen Home": "Yoostar mixes together a fancy webcam, access to the best content from Hollywood, and a sophisticated Web site to create a video version of karaoke that can be shared with anyone on the Web."

USA Today's technology writer Ed Baig wrote "Yoostar lets anyone act opposite Hepburn, Brando."

Associated Press Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang wrote a piece headlined "Yoostar is a movie-studio-in-a-box."

New York Times Technology reporter David Pogue had some criticism of Yoostar which he expressed via a video he published that he created using Yoostar. In my opinion, Pogue's video showed how much fun he had using Yoostar, and how creative the system can let you be.

Fast Company posted "Yoostar Turns Greenscreening Into a Game."

Variety wrote "Film may have found its Guitar Hero."

That's what we're hoping. That this will be the next social entertainment phenomenon, similar to karaoke, Guitar Hero, or Rock Band. Check out the gallery of performances, and you'll see how much fun people are having using Yoostar. Also, come out and try Yoostar out for yourself one of the stops from our nationwide Casting Tour. The grand prize is a walk-on role in a LionsGate film. If the tour isn't stopping near you, head into a local Bloomingdales. They have stages where you can step up and try Yoostar out.

Follow Yoostar on Twitter to stay up to date and let us know if you have any questions.

Labels: gadget, press, technology, yoostar

posted by Jess Barron @ 9:26 AM

September 2, 2009

Snoop Blogg: Snoop Dogg's Yoostar Performances

Snoop Dogg stopped by Yoostar's studio in NYC to record some videos for the site. His performances were off-the-hook. (And ya'll know how I'm a HUGE fan of Snoop's.)

Check 'em out:

Snoop and Costello
Lou Costello gives Snoop Dogg a hard time in this classic clip from "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein."

Snoop as Jason Voorhees
Snoop Dogg plays slasher Jason Voorhees in this scene from "Friday the 13th."

Snoop Likes It Hot
Marilyn Monroe flirts with Snoop Dogg in this classic scene from "Some Like It Hot." Notice that Snoop is gesticulating with a chicken wing in this scene.

Snoop as "Blacula"
Snoop Dogg gets ready to bite Ketty Lester when he shows his fangs in this scene from "Blacula."

Snoop as Bogey
Snoop Dogg appears in this "Casablanca" scene alongside Ingrid Bergman. Snoop smoothly delivers Humphrey Bogart's most iconic line: "Here's looking at you, kid."

Here's a link to a page where you can view all of Snoop's videos on Yoostar.

Labels: video, web, yoostar

posted by Jess Barron @ 3:18 PM