Gizmoz: An interesting gag video service
Want to send Mom a strange e-mail with a talking head? Check out Gizmoz.
Normally I stay away from gag sites like this, but Gizmoz is a guilty pleasure that caught my attention with its eccentric sense of humor. Gizmoz is a "Talking Heads" video creator that lets you make your own gag videos to send via e-mail or embed on your site.
There are a variety of characters to choose from, primarily celebrities and political figureheads, all with matching voice banks and caricature-like faces, many of which are slightly offensive. You also get the option to pick a slightly cheesy animated background. The real clincher for the service is the ability to use a microphone to record your message, or you can simply type in some text to be spoken by the computer. When you're all done, Gizmoz puts it all together in an animated video with a talking and moving 3D character. What amazed me about the service is how good the text-to-voice handled some of the words I fed it. The actual voice inflection and sentence structure--not so much.
Gizmoz lacks some handy features, such as being able to use the service without registering, and non-Windows Media Player save options (for Mac folks). I'd also like to see an option to turn the autoplay off on the embeds, something sure to drive your site or blog visitors nuts. We used Splashcast (read our earlier coverage) to embed this video and avoid the autoplay. Other than that, Gizmoz is a great deal of silly fun.