Since the launch of Funny Garbage's Emmy award winning mashup tool for The N, video mixing tools have become ubiquitous across the Web. Cartoon Network even developed a video mixing tool of their own but it lay relatively dormant on their site for some time.

They wanted to develop a video mixing tool that would inspire their site users to repurpose assets from their favorite Cartoon Network shows to tell stories. More importantly, they wanted to provide an engaging and simple workflow that would entice their users to repeatedly create remixed videos that could be shared with the larger community on the website.

Cartoon Network was aware of the advances in video mixing tools that FG had developed over the years and, naturally, they hired FG to design and build the MiXiT Video Creator. The tool is built in built in Flash and assets are updated and managed by Cartoon Network using XML.

FG had learned over the years that the success of a video mixing tool, ultimately required a low bar of entry. Very few people are willing to spend the time required to learn how to use a complex, proprietary interface for fun. With this in mind, FG designed the MiXiT Wizard, a series of templates that serve as a starting point for generating a video mix. Users are led through a simple series of steps and asked to hand-select the general theme for their MiXiT and the individual assets for each scene. Upon completion, users can preview the results and have the option to share the video to the public gallery or to fine tune the MiXiT using the full-fledged tool.

The results of this strategy were astounding. In the first month, over a million MiXiTs were saved to the public galleries! Not only are users engaged by the experience of generating MiXiTs, many are also spending time in the gallery watching MiXiTs created by others. Some of the most popular MiXiTs quickly reached over 20,000 views in the first few months: a testament to the quality of the output from the tool. To think that all this was achieved with the assets from a single show (Adventure Time). Traffic to the tool will undoubtedly spike again once Cartoon Network incorporates additional shows into the tool.