In Memory of PummelVision
Created by Jake Lodwick, Vimeo co-founder. Launched December 2010. Gone but never forgotten.
What It Was
Jake Lodwick built it after backing up his Tumblr and realizing he had thousands of photos. He wanted to see them as a video. So he made a prototype in Final Cut Pro, then built the real thing. It pulled photos from Facebook, Flickr, and Tumblr, then flashed your life before your eyes—as TechCrunch put it. VICE called it an app that mines your social media to create a montage of your online and offline life. This is a tribute to that. Same name, refreshed idea, new tools.
After it shut down, I tried to recreate it time and time again over the last decade during my career as a software engineer—tinkering with ffmpeg, video processing libraries, and various frameworks. But it always proved too much for a weekend side project. Until now. With AI LLMs and modern tooling, what once seemed impossible is finally within reach.
Want to see the originals? They're still on Vimeo.
I've used the PummelVision name as an homage to the original. If you're Jake Lodwick or have concerns about this, please get in touch. Happy to chat.