the list of 9 for august 2, 2008:
NINE REASONS WHY VIMEO IS BETTER THAN YOUTUBE
Another "reason" list. Oh well. Look, I'm no paid shill for Vimeo.com, the user-generated videowebsite that's been around longer than YouTube but has only a fraction of its audience (thoughit is growing). I don't even know the Vimeo guys. But I am a filmmaker who cares how his worklooks, so when I put my 2008 short Portrait of a Pensive Lady on YouTube, and somebodywrote in to say, "Why don't you put it on Vimeo? It's better." I looked into it. And you knowwhat? Vimeo is better. I'm hoping it becomes the Facebook to YouTube's MySpace: somethingso obviously nicer, and so much less of a cesspool, that it finally overtakes the more popularsite. Below are just nine of the reasons why it should. (By the way, I put Pensive Lady onVimeo, along with The Closest Thing to Time Travel and even all my old shorts from college.You can watch them here.)

  1. NO 10-MINUTE RULE. YouTube won't let you upload videosthat are longer than 10 minutes (I've seen a couple slip by, but don't know how it happened).Vimeo doesn't care how long your video is, as long as it's under 500 megabytes!

  2. DOWNLOADABILITY. One of the worst things about YouTube isthat you can't download the videos that you like, because they want you to stay on their site sothey can bombard you with advertising. (There was once this thing for Firefox which let you do it,but it doesn't work anymore.) Vimeo lets each uploader allow other registered Vimeousers to download their source video, even if it's an HD-sized Quicktime file. Wow.

  3. COURTEOUS EMAILS. Vimeo hasn't sent me any spam, but they do this nice thing when you upload a video: they send you an email alert when the video goes live. (Anybody who's tried to upload a clip to either site knows that it takes a while just to upload the file, and then the clip has to enter the site's database, which takes even longer.)

  4. FASTER UPLOADING. This is probably because Vimeo's trafficis not nearly as big as YouTube's, but it takes significantly less time to upload a file to Vimeo.

  5. MORE THUMBNAILS. Have you ever uploaded a video to YouTubeand been annoyed that the video's thumbnail, chosen from the midpoint of the clip, is not its bestmoment? (For instance, the Claustrophobia trailer was thumbnailed with a black frame!)Although YouTube has recently dug into their old code - remember when each video had threethumbnails? - and allows you to choose one of three frames (wow), Vimeo gives you twelveframes from your video to choose from, and even lets you upload your own graphic if you want.That's a no-brainer, but it's amazing. (How many times have you not watched a video becausethe thumbnail didn't intrigue you enough?)

  6. HD VIDEOS. That people can watch your video in highdefinition is pretty rad. (And of course they can download the extremely big HD Quicktime of ittoo, if you let them.)

  7. BETTER QUALITY. While we're on the subject... I haven'treally seen any difference on YouTube between a video's "regular quality" and its "higher quality."All I know is that I've uploaded the same clips to both YouTube and Vimeo, and Vimeo's imagequality, even at the "regular" level, is simply much better.

  8. LESS CLUTTERED AND EASIER TO USE. This is where theFacebook comparisons come in. YouTube's pages are so crowded, and its navigation is pretty poor.Vimeo is colorful and clean.

  9. DOES EVERYTHING ELSE. Obviously, the one thing thatYouTube has over Vimeo is its sheer number of videos. But as far as I've been able to see, youcan't do anything on YouTube that you can't do, more easily, on Vimeo. Now what is my ulteriormotive in becoming a cheerleader for Vimeo? Well, I want to increase its traffic, so more peoplewill see my short films there, and so it will stay alive, because it really is a good venue for meand others to showcase our work.

Copyright © Mark Tapio Kines 2011