Mozilla's Popcorn Maker beta lets you make 'Pop-up Videos' on the Web

In the late 90's and early 2000's, American music video channel VH1 aired a program called Pop-Up Video, which took existing music videos and augmented them with additional information about the performers, the videos, the music, and so forth. This information "popped" on screen at relevant times with an audible bubble popping noise.

The show turned out to be so popular that it ran for six years, and came back to VH1 nine years later. Right now, it's in its second year as a revival.

Mozilla has created a free Web-based application that lets users augment Web video or audio files just like a Pop-Up video episode. Users can drag and drop intertitles, links, google maps, images, and tweets into their base media file, which can come from YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, or any HTML5 video source. The media file and all the augmentations show up in a standard timeline interface which should be familiar to anyone who has used video editing software of any sort. It even includes the ability to skip sections of the video, add loops, or automatically pause in playback.

Currently, Popcorn Maker is beta Version 0.9, and Mozilla partnered with TED to give the world a look at the practical and educational applications of such an interface before it officially launches at the Mozilla Festival on November 9th.

The video we've embedded below shows some examples of how Popcorn Maker can be used to enhance a TED Talk, and if you click here you can remix the video yourself, or start your own project in the editor.

Furthermore, if you'd like to help Mozilla out in its finalization of Popcorn Maker, you can fill out a quality control report for the beta after you're done testing.