The JibJab Blog

Stick Your Face In It!

You Can Now Facebook Connect!

Facebook connect is one of the coolest features on the internet, letting you ditch your endless usernames and passwords that you keep at various websites and allowing you to just sign in using the one account you use the most anyways, your facebook! As soon as we heard about this ability, we knew JibJab had to integrate it into our site and our tech team worked tirelessly to get it up and live. So, without further ado, we present JibJab Facebook connect! Click “login using Facebook” in the top right bar of our site and use it to sign into JibJab, post stuff directly to your profile, comment on videos that friends and family make and be generally more awesome! More cool features coming soon!

June 11, 2009
Sundae Wagon Wednesday!

Three cheers! Animation on our rocking new video “He’s Barack Obama” has wrapped and as we render, burn DVDs for the press and catch up on sleep before the June 19th premiere, celebrations have commenced with a special surprise! Our trusty treat wagon rolled into the office as it does every Wednesday, this time loaded with a boatload of ice cream and a bevy of toppings! Ice cream sundaes for everyone, huzzah!

June 10, 2009
Intern Force, Assemble!

It’s that time of year again. The days are longer, the temperature is up, trees are looking their greenest and the interns have returned to JibJab! Hailing from CalArts, we’re excited to have the extreme talent of Marcos, Glenn and Romney here for the warm months to help us with our numerous big summer projects. Their first task? Working with us to develop the look and feel of our new Weird Al video due later this summer.. They’re up to the challenge, and we can’t wait to see what they come up with! Interns, away!

June 9, 2009
Go Kudobot Go!

Everyone at JibJab does the work of two or three people, and even though we’re a small, close-knit group… all too often someone does something really awesome that slips through the cracks, never to be shared with the team. That’s why last week we introduced a bold new initiative to applaud our colleagues in the coolest way we could think of… with a giant clawed robot! Meet the Kudobot, a machine designed for high fiving and back patting. At any point in the day we can submit a compliment to the Kudobot’s on our company intranet and tell it to send kudos to another coworker. Nice huh? It gets better… at the end of the night when all of the kudos have been accumulated, an e-mail goes out to the team listing all the cool accomplishments that have been lauded over the day. We’re hoping the Kudobot becomes a really awesome and popular way to give props to great deeds done within the company. Plus, those with the most kudos at the end of the month get a sweet cash incentive. That probably won’t hurt the Kudobot’s popularity very much at all…

June 8, 2009
Welcome to the New Economy!

We’ve got a new series of hard hitting shorties popping up on the site! As you’ll see, they deal with the new economy we’re all griping about and coming to grips with. But hey, good news for those strapped for cash right now… these are free! Check em out and send to any friends facing hard times.

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June 5, 2009
Metrics Schmetrics

This may look like a bunch of normal guys, out drinking beer and having a good time… but if pictures could talk you’d hear things like “uniques”, “conversion rate”, “make-to-share ratio”, and “average recipients per share”. Yep, JibJab’s crack product engineering team is clearly no ordinary group of dudes sippin brews, here they’re fast at work discussing business metrics and reporting. Or at least that’s what they told Gregg and Evan so they could expense the beers! 🙂

June 4, 2009
Jarl’s in Charge

Typically, we like to use friends and family when we cast a secondary character in one of our Original videos. For our upcoming Obama video, we needed to find someone in their 40/ 50s with a commanding physical presence to play a military General, and nobody from our immediate circle fit the bill. So where did we turn? Facebook, of course! Evan and Gregg flipped through their friends’ profile pics and realized that Jarl Mohn would be perfect. They weren’t sure if he’d have time (Jarl is insanely busy and accomplished) but luckily he said “yes” and a few days later we had the founder and former CEO of E! Entertainment dressed up like a General in front of the camera. Stay tuned for Jarl’s JibJab acting debut on June 19th. In the meantime, check out this great commencement speech he gave at the USC Annenberg School.

June 3, 2009
BIG NEWS! Obama video to premiere in front of POTUS himself!

We are beyond thrilled to announce that our first satire of the Obama administration will premiere in front of the big man himself at the 65th Annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner on June 19th in Washington, DC!

While we can’t give away any of the details about the video yet, we can say that we intend to rock the socks off of the 1,500+ gathered journalists, politicians, dignitaries and other assorted power brokers. There’s no banjo in this music track, folks! Check out the ridiculously awesome all-star rock band that recorded the song.

This is the second time we have had the incredible honor of entertaining a President. Two years ago, at the 2007 Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, we premiered “What We Call the News” along side the company of G.W. Bush and a rapping Karl Rove. Evan and Gregg even got to meet the POTUS!

Regardless of your politics, there is no higher honor we can think of as comedians than having the opportunity to be court jesters to the leader of the free world!

Stay tuned. We’ll be announcing more news on our latest and greatest animated short on this blog, on our Facebook page. You can also get up to the second updates on the event by becoming a fan of the RTCA on Facebook or by following them on Twitter.

June 2, 2009
What we ask of our Artists…

Philip here is inked from elbow to wrist as a special request for our huge Obama spectacular. It’s nice to work with a crew that’s willing to do anything to help us get the assets we need for animation. And no, it’s not permanent. Though it may be permanent marker…

We’re revealing the launch date for the Obama piece tomorrow, so stay tuned… especially to our twitter account!

June 1, 2009
Take the Tour!

Those who are already members may have missed this rad behind the scenes tour we put together, as it only shows up for those who are not signed up for the site. It’s so fun, we had to share it with everyone, so take a gander and get a good feel for what we’re all about and who we all are!
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May 29, 2009
Brand New Look, Same JibJab Flavor

If you’re browsing around JibJab tonight, you may notice that our eCards and Everyday Fun sections have had a drastic new makeover! We’ve been working for months to apply new features to the site and now that they’re up, we’re excited to offer areas that will be updated on a daily basis, pointing out the latest and greatest content we’ve added to the site. Browse around, you’ll see a tour video, staff picks, our most viewed content, links to our various social networks and much more offered in a stylish new schematic. It’s our hope that JibJab will be a place you can stop by everyday to find something unique and awesome to send to your friends!

May 28, 2009
Crunch Time

We’ve been working our rear ends off for our upcoming Obama video, trying to get the animation done in time to tweak and gear up for our big release (date and time TBA). We started keeping a big calendar on the wall at the beginning of the month, and it was going good… for a while. Yet, as is customary at our studio, it quickly descended into chaos. Gaze into the month of madness, before and after!

May 27, 2009
Something Weird This Way Comes

JibJab friend and collaborator Weird Al Yankovic stopped by the studio today! We’ve grown a lot since we last collaborated with him in 2006 for the music video to “Do I Creep You Out” , so we gave him the grand tour and a sneak peek at our various top secret projects in development. On top of our next big political piece, we may be doing something with Al himself this summer! No lounging around on the beach for us, we’ve got work to do.

May 26, 2009
Profile Pic Flix!

We doubled the size of our free profile picture library over the last month and one cool development has been the addition of some Starring You postables that pay tribute to the summer’s biggest popcorn flicks. You’ll be seeing more as the weeks go by, so keep checking back as the image count grows and grows. Below are our most popular three new pictures. As you can see, we like to mix and match!

May 22, 2009
Facebook Exclusive: Free Download of ‘This Land’!

Joining up as a fan of JibJab on Facebook has many perks, the coolest of which may be a free download of our mega viral hit “This Land”! How do you snag your own copy of it, for keeping forever? First, click this link and add yourself as a fan on Facebook. Then go to the “coupons” tag above our fan page, click the image to claim your secret download and before you know it, you’ll be kickin’ it 2004 style,. Don’t forget to tell your friends!

May 21, 2009