I came across Jumpcut a few days ago and although i am not a video artist myself, i keep thinking of great ways that people could use this service. Jumpcut is a site that will let you edit and share video clips, even create full movies – all from your web browser without ever having to install any extra software. First off, let me say that i really liked the simple, clean design – the color scheme – just a great overall first impression. Then, on closer inspection, i realized that most of the main features, the video editing tools, absolutely required Flash 8. So, basically, they just cut-off most Linux users, who are still waiting for the newest version of Flash player for popular browsers like Firefox. Nevertheless, this is not really Jumpcut’s fault, and the uniqueness of this service warrants a second look.

So, i dusted off and fired up good old (and i mean old) Internet Explorer 6, and headed back to Jumpcut.com – to log in (again) – this time with my trusty Flash 8 enabled browser. Once inside, everything seemed very straight forward. I recommend reading the FAQ and the Quick Guide at the bottom of the page if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed at first.

The Jumpcut Editor – this is the central tool by which all other Jumpcut jazz is built around. It has a familiar interface (similar to most video editing suites). There is a timeline, some effects for transitions, a library of clips to work with, and various other neat stuff.

The main features (aside from The Jumpcut Editor) are:

1. Upload – video clips, photos and music

You can do this in several ways:

• clicking on the “Upload” tab on the main page
• importing your images directly from Flickr
• uploading from inside the editor
• uploading via email

From the FAQ page, the maximum upload size is 50Mb, but you can always upload multiple clips and edit them together to form a clip that is much larger.

2. Explore – find other people’s public content and Grab / Remix it / Publish.

• Grabbing lets you use other people’s video and images in your own movies.
• Remixing someone else’s movie (or your own), and do what you want with it.
• Publish your content for all to see.

You can also keep content private, if you’d like.

3. Share – this feature is what will likely make this service really stand out.
You can share anything you can find on Jumpcut.

• Email a Link: lets you send a message with a link to a friend.
• Post to a Website: just copy / paste the embed code into any website that accepts html
• Automated Posting Links: lets you post directly to many popular websites, including Blogger, MySpace, TypePad, WordPress, Digg and del.icio.us.

There’s a lot of other cool things going on over at Jumpcut. There are Groups, Events, even Contests (ie: Audition to be a movie star in Fox Atomic’s new version of the classic comedy, Revenge of the Nerds. Read More..) – and this site is still very young. Can’t wait to see what they comes out of this new community.