In 2007 there were a plethora on startups eager to capture the attention of consumers with their new online video editing web applications. Then, web video was hotter than bacon grease on the griddle. While consumer consumption of video is still expanding, general demand for online video editing services hasn't been able to sustain all these startups. The dust has settled and now we can take a closer look at some of the more popular options for online video editing.

Who's It For?

Online video editing applications are not for the intermediate or advanced video editors. Let me first get that out of the way for you loyal Videomaker fans. But don't go away. There are some great features that may be of use to you. For you beginners, or mobile video shooters (iPhone 4 movie producers, anyone?) these tools are your best ally. But if there's one word of warning for you, it's to not try to do too much with your produced videos with these tools. They're better for uber simple edits and extremely short videos.

Minimal Requirements

One of the great things about these applications is that all you really need is a modern Internet browser (e.g., FireFox, Chrome, Safari) and a high speed Internet connection (the faster the better). Your computer's processor, hard drive and RAM are factors as always, but they are not used as intensively. In fact they're simply used to run the browser window, or in the case of the hard drive, read data from the drive as your media is uploaded to the respective video editing web services. So, just about any modern computer can be a good editing machine for this particular use case.

The Tools of the Trade

We're taking a look at online video editing tools provided by JayCut.com, Pixorial.com and YouTube.com. Each of these is very different in the type of features they support, but they all share one goal: they let you produce and edit video using their web site. Let's dig in.

JayCut.com: Editor's Delight

As someone who has been editing for years, I found JayCut's editing tools extremely easy to use and it had a pleasantly surprising amount of options. Of all three tools we looked at, this one is one of the more "professionally" appealing. The timeline interface and wide selection of transitions and other options blew the rest of the competition out of the water. But we still believe that if your ultimate goal is to have more tools, effects and other options, you're better off going with a traditional software suite. With that said, we appreciated at least having them at our disposal with JayCut.

Another great feature of JayCut is their batch uploading that allows you to select multiple files for upload. This might not seem like a big deal, but consider that it may take you several hours to upload your video files even for a short 3-minute produced video. Batch uploading means that you can select your files, click the Upload button and walk away. In some cases you might just go grab some dinner and watch a movie and come back to it. You won't miss much.

JayCut's editing interface looks very similar to the early days of non-linear editors where there were two video tracks: A and B. That will be a throwback for some you. For you new editors, this format just allows you to visually overlap two clips and apply a transition between them. While there's no right or wrong way of doing it, you do save some screen real estate if you go with a single track and allow transition to be placed on top of the intersecting "butts" of the clips.

JayCut's exporting options are quite simple and provide a variety of encoding options that we didn't find in the others. You can export to a variety of files that place nicely with mobile devices as well as other common video file types. Of course, sharing your video on YouTube is there as well. It's important to note, as we wrap up our look at JayCut, that they've changed their business model from B2C to B2B, meaning that most of their business objectives are to get their tools on other websites. For example, The Oprah Winfrey Show recently used its technology to launch its nationwide talent search for a new host for its new talkshow on Oprah's network. So, while you can go to JayCut's site and edit video now, we can't help but wonder if they'll go the route of Adobe Premiere Express, another online video editor, that is only offered through limited partnerships.