Vimeo
| Vimeo logo | |
| File:Vimeo Screenshot.png Screenshot of vimeo.com home page | |
| Type of business | Subsidiary of Connected Ventures |
|---|---|
Type of site | video sharing |
| Available in | English |
| Founded | November, 2004 |
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
| Owner | Connected Ventures, LLC. |
| Key people | Jakob Lodwick, Founder |
| URL | vimeo.com |
| Registration | Optional (required to upload) |
| Launched | 2004 |
| Current status | active |
Vimeo is a video-centric social network site (owned by Connected Ventures) which launched in November 2004. The site supports embedding, sharing, video storage, and allows user-commenting on each video page. Users must register to upload content. Registered users may also create a profile and upload small user pictures as their avatars.
Vimeo allows only user-created videos, of a "friends and family" nature. Pornography, TV shows, music videos, movies, gaming videos[1] or anything not created by the user is not allowed on the site. Vimeo has gained a reputation[1] as catering to a high end, artistic crowd because of its higher bitrate, resolution, and relative HD support.
Origin of name
The name "Vimeo" was created by co-founder Jakob Lodwick. It is an anagram of "movie" and is also a play on the word "video," inserting the word "me" as a reference to the site's dedication to user-made films exclusively.
Popularity
Vimeo has seen large growth after the shutdown of Stage6, a portal which also allowed videos to be shared in HD quality.[2] As of May 2008, Vimeo has over 520,000 videos[3] and 410,000 members, with an average of over 4100 new videos uploaded daily.[4]
Notable content
Vimeo has helped to offload traffic from Improv Everywhere's servers after new pranks are announced, and continues to host most of their videos[2]. It was also the original location of Noah Kalina's "everyday" video[3], which has become one of the most watched viral videos of all time. Comedians Kristen Schaal and Reggie Watts use Vimeo to promote their content. Popular internet series Jake and Amir uses Vimeo as its host as well.
Video quality
On October 17, 2007, Vimeo announced support for High Definition playback, becoming the first video sharing site to support consumer HD. Uploaded HD videos are automatically converted into 720p Flash video. Non-HD videos also have significantly higher bitrates than other competing video sharing sites. Users can upload up to 500 mb of videos per week.
Gaming Videos ban
On July 21, 2008, Vimeo announced that they were no longer going to allow gaming videos due to the fact that:
"Gaming videos are by nature significantly larger and longer than any other genre on Vimeo. Over these last few months they have been the single biggest reasons for our transcoder wait times."[1]
--Blake Whitman, Vimeo Administrator
This announcement has had reaction, the majority of gamers uploading videos to Vimeo oppose the change while supporters for the site have expressed acceptance for the well-being of the future of the site.
Pre-existing gaming videos will be subject to deletion on September 1st, 2008. All new uploads are currently subject to this rule.
References
See also
External links
- Vimeo
- Connected Ventures
- PC World review of the site August 2007