Roxio, a division of digital media software company Sonic Solutions, has launched Roxio Online with PhotoShow accessible via mobile.

Roxio Online with PhotoShow is a new Web service that lets families turn their personal photos and video clips into multimedia slide shows that can be shared privately with close friends and family. Roxio Online lets consumers turn personal memories into a multimedia slide show with special effects, automatic transitions, animation, captions and a soundtrack.

"This is our first step into the Web services market, and we want to empower users to share photos and videos and create beautiful slide shows," said Sean Penn, senior director of product management for Web products and services at Sonic Solutions, Novato, CA. "They can add captions, music and animation to tell a compelling story and share it with friends and family."

Sonic Solutions acquired PhotoShow a few months ago and is in the process of fully integrating it into its product line and operations.

Roxio Online also lets users create Flash-based podcasts of all their photo shows and sync them with the iPhone, iPod, Apple TV and certain other mobile devices.

The photo shows can be rendered to mpeg4 video and aggregated to a podcast RSS feed. Roxio Online premium users can launch iTunes and add the podcasts to their list of subscriptions and get future podcasts automatically downloaded there.

Even mobile phones that do not support Flash-based podcasts can get alerts every time one of the user's contacts posts a new podcast.

Users can also export their photo shows to Windows Media Video and then transfer them to Windows Mobile phones.

"There are a few different avenues for getting Roxio Online content to mobile phones," Mr. Penn said.

"Adding other mobile devices is on our roadmap, and at some point we'll open up our APIs to third-party developers and enable other mobile devices to upload the application, similar to Apple MobileMe," he said.

Premium subscribers are able to select from more than 150 one-click themes, enhance their story with more than 500 animated graphics and add a commentary with more than 40 different title and caption treatments. They can then pick an accompanying soundtrack from more than 400 licensed professional music tracks.

"We have a subscription-based business model, so while anyone can make a photo show for free, but when you upgrade to premium you get a whole bunch more content and you can do more things with your photo show," Mr. Penn said.

"From a strategic standpoint, it gives us a better balance in our revenue mix, since it's a more constant revenue stream," he said. "From a user's standpoint, they get new features all year long as we roll out new capabilities."

The Roxio Online premium service is priced at $39.99 per year. It is available at http://www.roxio.com/go/online.

Roxio Online users can create a free Web page with channels dedicated to specific events or occasions and share shows with family and friends by embedding final productions in popular sites such as MySpace and Facebook or personal blogs such as Blogger.

Users can also add a PhotoShow channel to their MSN, Yahoo or Google pages or to their iTunes podcast library.

Roxio Online is also the only service that lets users broadcast shows directly to cable TV, where they appear as a video-on-demand offering.

Digital storytellers can also turn their favorite PhotoShow stories into professionally created keepsake DVDs.

"Even non-subscribers have the ability to order DVDs of their photo shows with a custom jacket and label, and they can choose the cover photo," Mr. Penn said. "It's the fulfillment side of the business, which pays for free aspect of service, and it has the viral ability of bringing friends and family in and letting them try the service before committing.

"You'll want to sign up and do more when you see your friends' and family's reaction," he said.

To see a visual demonstration of Roxio Online in action visit http://www.roxioonline.com/watch/iT5Bp3Ag, or to read about the experience with PhotoShow of Dave Habiger, president/CEO of Sonic, go to http://blog.roxio.com/mymoments/2008/08/making_digital_connections.html.

"This is a natural extension to let the users of our other products tap into new features," Mr. Penn said.

"We're signaling to the market and our users that we are really behind this effort and will be a wide base of Web services that will be available under the Roxio Online name," he said.

The company says it hopes to expand its mobile offerings.

"We have a lot of potential to grow our Web and mobile services," Mr. Penn said. "You can't ignore mobile in digital media. It's an investment for us to make sure our desktop, mobile and online services are working together to provide the best user experience.

"We don't want users to have to cobble together 10 different products to have these capabilities," he said.

"It's about sharing with friends and family, and while there are a lot of photo-sharing services out there on the Web, most just show you the photos themselves, while Roxio is about taking those photos and turning them into a story."

The differentiating factor of the service is consumers' ability to weave a narrative by tweaking customizable features.

"With a couple of clicks, users have the power to customize that story, make it really personal, and you won't find anything else like it on the Web," Mr. Penn said. "It gives people the opportunity to really crank up the emotional content of their photos."

Families and other consumers can create personal stories that can be shared and enjoyed on PCs, DVDs, TVs, handheld devices and popular social media sites through a free subscription available at http://www.roxio.com/go/online.

Consumers can test-drive the service and create PhotoShow presentations for free, and then subscribe to the premium service, which unlocks a host of additional creation and sharing capabilities.

Roxio, Sonic's consumer products group, develops a range of digital media creation, management, preservation, sharing and enjoyment applications for home and business users under the Roxio brand.

Roxio claims that its products let consumers achieve professional results from their photo, video and music projects with minimal effort.

Roxio also claims that its flagship applications, Easy Media Creator for the PC and Toast for the Apple Macintosh, are the best-selling products in their respective categories in North American retail.

Roxio's parent company, Sonic Solutions, enables the creation and management of digital media content through its Hollywood to Home products, services and technologies.

Sonic's products range from the advanced authoring systems used to produce Hollywood DVD and Blu-ray Disc titles to the Roxio-branded photo, video, music and digital-media management applications and services.

Sonic's patented technologies and AuthorScript media engine are relied upon by leading technology firms to define rich media experiences on a wide array of consumer electronics, mobile devices, set-top players, retail kiosks and PCs.

Sonic has helped professional and consumer markets make the successful transition to the new high-definition media formats and, through the Qflix platform, Sonic is defining new models for the digital distribution of Hollywood entertainment.

Roxio plans to take advantage of traditional PR, distribution and marketing channels, including Web and print advertising. The company will also leverage the reach of affiliates and retail partners such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

"We have an enormous user base that we've been building for more than 15 years, with over 300 million installed systems of Creator, and we're hoping our user base will find that Roxio Online is an extremely valuable extension to what they've already been doing with digital media," Mr. Penn said.

"This will be a great complementary service to our desktop product, and due to the sharing aspect it has a viral effect, because users connect to their network and their contacts are going to get exposed to the Roxio Online service," he said.