2018 was our best year yet. From bigger and better content to the debut of Vyond Studio, we’ve sure been busy. Here’s our recap of 2018:
JANUARY
- We hit the ground running on company-wide data privacy initiatives, including GRPR and ISO 27000. We met our GDPR deadline this year and we’re working towards ISO certification in 2019.
FEBRUARY
- Our team loves staying active together. In February, we celebrated with both Fit February and Winter Office Olympics.
MARCH
- Celebrated GoAnimate’s 11th anniversary.
- Launched a new community platform as a place for customers to connect and learn from one another.
- Introduced the new Contemporary style.
APRIL
- Exceeded 200,000 total social media fans. Follow us on Instagram for all the latest.
- In April, we placed a company-wide focus on stress awareness and tried to keep this video in mind for our busy month ahead.
MAY
- On May 7th we rebranded from GoAnimate to Vyond. We were not acquired and nothing about our company changed. GoAnimate, Inc. is even still our legal business name. The rebrand was at least two years in the making, and we did it for two primary reasons:
- GoAnimate was a great name and described exactly what we offered, but it didn’t describe who we could be in the future. Already, people are using Vyond in ways that go beyond basic animation, and we are researching and planning for opportunities to expand on that in the years to come.
- We heard from some customers that “GoAnimate” wasn’t being taken seriously as a business communication tool. We hope that our rebrand and name change help dispell the idea that “animation” is just for kids.
- The same day, we released the beta version of the new Vyond Studio. We spent years rebuilding to make a better, faster, easier-to-use, HTML5-based tool for you. If you became a customer after May 6, 2018 you are already using this product. If you are a Legacy Video Maker customer, we strongly encourage you to start making the switch to Vyond Studio now — it’s free to switch, you won’t lose your original videos, and the new product is better. We are still actively working on the ability to copy videos from Legacy to Vyond Studio, and we’ll have more information to share in the first quarter of 2019.
- The following day at ATD International in San Diego we hosted our biggest party yet to celebrate the announcements. Thanks to everyone who attended!
- We were ready for GDPR on May 25th, and are now compliant with all requirements.
JUNE
- With the new Vyond Studio released, we were able to get back to sharing product updates on a regular basis. June’s product updates to Vyond Studio included:
- Contemporary characters ability to turn their heads to a ¾ angle.
- Better font size control.
- New Contemporary hairstyles and outfits.
- 29 Text-to-speech languages added to Vyond Studio.
- 22 new templates: 12 Venn diagrams and 10 new calls to action.
JULY
- July and August’s Vyond Studio product updates included:
- Version history now saves a copy of your video every ten minutes.
- Team video sharing.
- Password protected video sharing.
- 2,300+ Common Craft assets and templates added for Professional and Enterprise customers.
- Healthcare pack (20 templates, 2 backgrounds, 70 props, 66 actions, 24 character creator components, and 20 stock characters).
AUGUST
- MP4 capabilities were introduced to Vyond Studio and we increased the file size limit from 15MB to 100MB!
- August’s Vyond Studio updates included:
- 95 new props (landmarks, plants, household utensils).
- 39 new templates (concepts and titles).
- 74 new contemporary actions (cooking & catering, daily life, emotion, shopping, travel & working).
SEPTEMBER
- After 11 years as CEO, our founder, Alvin Hung, chose to step down and replace himself with Gary Lipkowitz who had served as our COO since 2011. Alvin still remains as an integral part of our company.
- September’s Vyond Studio updates included:
- 83 Contemporary props (animals, sports, shipping, and farming).
- 93 Business Friendly props (pharma and retail).
- 36 Contemporary actions (sports and shipping).
- 10 Business Friendly actions (pharma and shipping).
- 3 Contemporary templates (shipping).
- 9 Business Friendly templates (pharma and retail).
- 5 Business Friendly backgrounds (pharma and retail).
- Content outside of the stage is now shown while editing a video.
- Speech bubble improvements.
- Simple shape opacity control.
- Search videos on your videos page.
- Thumbnail preview on your videos page.
OCTOBER
- Shortly after Gary’s transition from COO to CEO he appointed Mark Deaton, our original head of customer success, as his replacement.
- October’s Vyond Studio updates included:
- 43 Halloween actions, props, and character creator components added to the Contemporary style.
- Business Friendly office pack: 15 templates, 6 backgrounds, and 17 props.
- Contemporary sports pack: 12 backgrounds, 23 props, and 18 character creator components.
- 14 weather-related Contemporary props.
- Ability to bulk change scene properties.
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER
- Attended our first conference in Germany.
- Vyond, the L&D video solution built for microlearning, won a Brandan Hall Excellence in Technology Award.
- December’s Vyond Studio update included:
- Holiday content (Business Friendly and Contemporary): 28 props, 14 actions, 8 character creator components, and 8 stock characters.
- 180 Contemporary animals
- 39 props and 37 actions for cooking and catering (Contemporary).
- 2 “using a mouse” Contemporary actions
- Global edit, or “asset view” enhancement for Professional plan customers. With this new feature, you have the ability to bulk adjust positions, size, opacity. And you have the ability to bulk swap assets, change actions, change expressions, change colors, add or change effects, and add or remove motion paths.
- Our 12 days of video campaign shared all of our most useful content from 2018 and new video templates to use in 2019.
