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Vimeo buys cinemagraph app Echograph

First came Twitter with Vine, now Vimeo has bought a cinemagraph and animated GIF app.

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Lexy Savvides Principal Video Producer
Lexy is an on-air presenter and award-winning producer who covers consumer tech, including the latest smartphones, wearables and emerging trends like assistive robotics. She's won two Gold Telly Awards for her video series Beta Test. Prior to her career at CNET, she was a magazine editor, radio announcer and DJ. Lexy is based in San Francisco.
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Lexy Savvides

Blame it on Twitter: Vimeo may soon see an influx of animated GIF-style sequences called cinemagraphs.

(Credit: Echograph)

The term cinemagraph was coined and popularised by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck in 2011 when they produced a series of still images animated ever so slightly with a cinematic feel. Twitter launched Vine a few weeks ago, a service that allows users to share six-second snippets of looping video. While not technically a cinemagraph in the sense that Burg and Beck intended, a new craze was born.

Video-sharing service Vimeo has acquired the Echograph app, which lets users create animated GIFs from videos and images. Vimeo has not yet made it clear how these videos will integrate with its platform, though Echograph's staff members will make the transition over to the video-sharing site.

"We chose Echograph because it helps people easily create beautiful, high-quality video content," said Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor.

The app is currently available for iOS only and is free in the App Store.