‘Magical’ video editor Magisto updates Facebook Timeline app, hopes for Viddy-like user bump

Video editing startup Magisto has upgraded its young Facebook Timeline app with more social features in hopes to attract a flood of new users, the company announced today.

After launching its own Facebook Timeline app, social video sharing startup Viddy began to grow at a startling rate, eventually adding 5.5 million users in 11 days. Since that time, other startups have taken notice and hoped that their own apps can take off through exposure to Facebook’s 900 million users. Now that Magisto, another video-based application, has seen what Viddy can do, it hopes to follow down the same path.

Magisto’s service essentially automates the video editing process for short clips on the web and iPhone and lets you keep a cloud-based locker for all your edited videos. With the Timeline app, users can see several of your Magisto videos in one place so friends are more likely to give them a watch.

“I believe that Magisto timeline app’s improved sharing, organization, and discovery was the last missing piece that can now make personal video become wildly successful and social as photos started to be a few years ago,” Magisto CEO Oren Boiman told VentureBeat via e-mail.

The company is debuting the updated Timeline app at a Facebook-sponsored event in Amsterdam, which coincides with The Next Web Conference.

“Only a few apps are featured by Facebook and we are very proud that Magisto is one of them. Some of those apps have seen very rapid growth since launching their timeline apps (e.g. Viddy), so we’re very excited to see this happening,” Boiman said.

Israel-based Magisto received $5.5 million in second-round funding back in September following an undisclosed first round. Hong Kong investor Li Ka-shing‘s Horizon Ventures led the second round, with participation from prior investor Magma Venture Partners.