When it comes to online video sites, YouTube is obviously a force that has taken the web by storm, being a main source for online videos for a long time. However, as video began to be such a huge impact, many other sites caught on to the enormous possibilities of online video sharing. A site I regard highly in this category is Vimeo. Vimeo presents itself as “A respectful community of creative people who are passionate about
sharing the videos they make. We provide the best tools and highest quality video in the universe.” This seems like a huge statement to make, but there quality is by far the best I have come across as far as video sharing goes.
Entering the site, I immediately notice it has a much cleaner visual appeal than Youtube. The site is further split into categories, groups, channels, projects, and high def to make it easier to take find specifically what you are looking for. Vimeo uses social media perfectly, connecting users through not only comments, but also through groups, channels, recommendations etc. There are over 24,000 groups, which brings a sense of a mini communities within a larger community to fit users specific interests. When entering the specific group you can view videos, contribute to the forums, see new members/ member profiles. The profiles don’t get overly personal such as a Facebook, but let you give detail about yourself, what videos you’ve uploaded, what you liked, who you are connected to. This brings a more personal appeal rather than a profile just involving age and location.
I think Youtube could directly benefit from this mini community idea of connecting users with similar interests. Vimeo has groups ranging from music, animation, science & tech, to activism. No matter what your interests are, Vimeo allows you to find other users with similar interests and connect to their videos and comments. As reviewed on Oneupweb, Vimeo gave an avid snowboarder plenty of high quality videos where YouTube couldn’t offer this. YouTube has so many videos that it’s so hard to connect and sift through spam comments and low quality in order to get the experience you are looking for. YouTube currently has channel, but there isn’t a real sense of community and connection such as with Vimeo. Vimeo gives the feel of a greater community even through something as simple as staff recommendations. Sharing content from the site to other social networking sites is also seamless and embedding to a blog is simple as well. I personally find Vimeo a much greater outlet for creative work where I know I can find interesting and unique videos by simply entering one of the groups in one click. Vimeo is personalized and tells who was involved in the video, the director, music etc. I have noticed, especially at Emerson, more students using Vimeo to share videos on other networks such as Facebook and Twitter. YouTube needs to find that personalization between users in order to be more of a social network that creates conversation.
As for quality, Vimeo definitely stands up to its promise as the highest quality video, take a look for yourself.
heart from laurent clermont on Vimeo.