Vimeo soon to go out of video sharing business

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Supporting our community of creators is, and has always been, our top priority. As we invest in more tools to help our creators — and continue to be an ad-free service that relies on member support instead of ad revenue — we have to adjust what we offer for free (like storage, which, between transcoding and hosting, is pretty expensive).

This is to let you know that starting January 29, we’re introducing a 5GB total storage limit for Basic members.

Strong rumors are around that they are months from total collapse.

Yet Vimeo can keep running for paid account as a way to sell your videos.

robertGL

I never understood vimeo outside of being a place to upload camera/lens demos, which you can also do on youtube

tubefingers

I find Vimeo really useful for clients focussed stuff, can store client videos, replace/update easily, provide downloadable links, get feedback via timecoded notes etc. Lot of stuff you cant do on YT, pretty good value for money for us (Plus account for corporate productions)

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@tubefingers

Reality can be that Vimeo is on life support for quite a time. Like AMD had been for long time. Too keep some company.

LongJohnSilver

Many years ago Vimeo has been very different from YouTube. Now it isn't worth anymore except maybe for ads. They deliberately destroyed their key differences against the will of their paying community. A suicide. Once upon a time there was a player which let you choose video resolution. Once upon a time there was a player which let you choose 1:1 aspect ratio.

Now they removed all their peculiar features imitating YT because adaptive streaming it's the future. Thing is that they are technically incompetent to produce something even barely comparable to YT. So now their player fails to sense the connection speed 90% of the time resulting in a pixelated video. Professionals showing their video have to explain all of this to their customers while before even a chimp understood the magic of pause and buffering (if needed).

Now if you have an old 720p or 1080p video and your screen is 2560 or 4K there's no way to see it 1:1 as before. You have to see it in a box or full screen overstretched.

YouTube is exactly the same but it's free. Why I should pay 50$ each year?customer support is horrible.

The only thing I miss is the healthy network of friends built during the years.

RIP Vimeo

tubefingers

Be a shame if they go under - FrameIO is the only similar option I can think of if we need to switch provider, woulda thought Vimeo had enough Plus/Pro/Business users to stay in business. Are these rumours related to them now charging for any storage over 5GB for free users?

@Longjohnsilver - YT is a different model for a different set of users, there is a lot that Vimeo does that I wouldn't be able to achieve on YT, listed most of the features in my previous comment

LongJohnSilver

@tubefingers I agree with you but your business account costs 40 USD/month. Very different from my 50$/yr plus account. On plus account I don find many difference anymore with YT

tubefingers

$200 a year for Pro, not too expensive for the functionality. I think a Plus account allows you to replace the videos at the same link, add timecode notes, create personalised albums and other stuff. For us (corporate video production) its a great tool, UI seems much better than YT for my needs. If I was a freelance cam op I'd probably still choose it over YT. Not too expensive as a place to store your videos for client access/download etc.

CFreak

Someone recently recommended Wisteria as an option over Vimeo, even said they have a free version... So I looked into it: free upto 3 videos, then $99/month. If Vimeo can hang on, and not piss us all off to jump ship, as they did with their 40% price hikes last year, they are still the best option, if you use the privacy options (for your clients). I posted some coupon codes in the deals thread, a few months back on PV, that brought prices back down below the old prices.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Vimeo Launches Social Distribution Tools to Help Creators Grow and Engage Their Audience

February 14, 2018

Today, Vimeo announced two social distribution tools designed to help creators expand their audience while simplifying their workflow. First, the launch of Simulcast allows live events to be simultaneously streamed from the Vimeo platform to multiple destinations including Facebook, YouTube, Twitch and Periscope. Second, Vimeo's Publish to Social feature allows creators to natively publish their videos to Facebook and YouTube with just one click. Both features are available to members of specific paid Vimeo plans, with more social platforms to be added in the coming months.

"We are committed to helping creators succeed anywhere - on and off Vimeo. As ad-supported platforms become increasingly walled off to keep content on their sites, we are building new ways to be an agnostic distribution hub, so creators don't have to choose," said Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo. "Our new social distribution tools will give Vimeo creators a wider audience, deeper engagement, and a fundamentally simplified distribution process."

Highlighted features of Simulcast include:

More viewers, higher engagement: Ability to simultaneously live stream events directly from Vimeo to any RTMP-enabled destination (including Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Periscope and more). Creators can now stream to multiple destinations from a creator's website to their social pages to expand audience reach.

Saves bandwidth costs: With Simulcast, live events streamed to multiple social platforms require a single input stream, as opposed to separate streams for each destination. This means less bandwidth costs and a simpler workflow, especially for events where bandwidth uplink is limited (like conferences or an outdoor event).

Simplified workflow: When the live event is complete, the stream is automatically archived on Vimeo, so creators can manage, review, or share high-quality post-event videos.

Highlighted features of Publish to Social include:

Single distribution hub: Creators can publish their videos directly from Vimeo natively to other social platforms (including Facebook and YouTube), with just one click. Instead of having to upload videos to each social platform separately, creators now have one home where they can manage their entire distribution strategy.

Increased audience reach: Since social platforms like Facebook favor native uploads, creators can gain better visibility and higher audience exposure on those sites.

Stats and performance dashboard: Ability to see side-by-side stats for each social platform (including plays, likes, and comments), so creators can track how their videos perform across the web.

IronFilm

Simulast cast sounds cool! But you have to pay for it:

https://vimeo.com/live#pricing

WalterH

Not dead yet: https://vimeo.com/blog/post/vimeo-for-macos-final-cut-pro

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@WalterH

Yep, not dead. But close.

tubefingers

I find interviews with new CEO talking about pulling out of the SVOD market and focussing on content creators - but no rumours of "death of Vimeo" :D Do you have any links you can provide?

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@tubefingers

No, just strong industry rumors.

Their current idea seems to somehow limit themselves to paid accounts and "content creators" as you said. Yet "content creators" are pulling from them like mad. Activity dropped, views are horrible.

tubefingers

Ah really - I don't notice this, I have no problems with my companies use of Vimeo and clients are happy with the link/albums etc we send - what do you mean "views are horrible"?

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@tubefingers

Vimeo brings tiny number of views if you just publish video. So it is now kind of video hosting.

Such thing can't survive for long.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

In an Axios interview, company chief Anjali Sud said Vimeo was shifting away from its emphais on indie filmmaking (not that it's completely giving that up) and will instead focus on selling a creative tool, Vimeo Stock. It'll center around access to a large stock video collection, and will offer tools to optimize and post footage across a slew of social networks.

Expect closure within 6 months after stock idea will fail miserably.