Staff Blog

In case you haven't checked it out recently, the Hubnut widget now allows you to select your albums or channels. This could be a great way to embed your channel's videos into a webpage.

User comments are an integral part of the Vimeo experience. Watching a video is just one component of the larger social interaction. Fortunately, the Vimeo community engages in a thoughtful and respectful dialog; conversations with meaning and substance, or at least in good, light-hearted spirit. Most other sites on the Internet don’t have that type of positive social interplay.

However, with comments dispersed across many different video pages, forum posts, private messages and the Vimeo blog, keeping track of the dialog is too difficult.

And so, we are really excited to release a new system to manage all of your conversations.

The Vimeo conversation browser aggregates all of your comment activity in a centralized location, making it easy for you to track your comments, other peoples’ responses and the larger ongoing conversation on Vimeo.

So, enjoy! And as Ron Burgundy would say, “stay classy Vimeo”.

We made a new feature for your profile: Friend Boxes. Take a look at my profile to see it in action, then look at your own profile to customize it. By default, it shows your newest contacts, but you can customize it to show whoever you want, and you can write a description of each person. I think this will make it more fun to look at someone's profile. In the past, profiles were sort of a dead end.

Post a link to your profile in the comments after you've played around with it.

I think the best webmail platform is Gmail, and many Vimeo users agree. That's why we built a Gmail contacts importer. It's simple: you enter your email address and password, then Vimeo grabs your contacts from Gmail and shows you who also has a Vimeo account. Then you just click a button to add each one to your Vimeo contacts.

I tried it this morning and found about a dozen close friends who weren't my contacts on Vimeo. It's easy; give it a try! In the future, you can find a link from the Tools menu up top, or from your contacts page. And by the way, Vimeo will not store your Gmail account information, nor will we send emails (ie, spam) to any of your friends.

If you have questions or comments, post them below. We'll keep an eye on the thread.

<3,
Jakob

Vimeo respects your videos and your right to decide who watches them. Vimeo stands for a higher level of quality — both in the site's content, and the platform itself. We pride ourselves on seeing the world a bit differently. Together, Vimeo and its users (you guys) have spent considerable time trying to construct a community around those values.

Some videos truly capture nature's beauty or the producer's creativity. Some videos should be viewed in their original high-quality format — in High Definition (HD).

And so, we are very pleased to announce that Vimeo is the first site to allow content creators to present their personal videos in native 720p (1280x720) resolution. Thanks to Canon and the Vimeo team, if you can shoot in HD, you can share in HD!

Supporting HD requires significant storage and bandwidth resources. Fortunately, Canon has graciously agreed to help subsidize the costs for the remainder of 2007.

We are also increasing the dimensions of non-HD videos from 460 to 506 pixels, and the bitrate from 400 kb/s to 500 kb/s (both of which will increase video playback quality).

We want everyone to be able to try HD. So, for the rest of the year, everyone's weekly upload quota will increase from 250 MB to 500 MB, which can be used for multiple videos, or just a big one — standard or high definition. The higher quota will probably require a subscription fee in 2008, but for now, it is free! No strings attached.

If you are curious about HD, consider reading the primer that Justin prepared:

http://vimeo.com/help/hd

We have also created an HD video showcase using our new Channels platform:

http://vimeo.com/hd

Enjoy. And, share some fantastically pristine videos with the Vimeo Community.

The day has come. Videos you upload yourself and videos that you have credit in, are now separate on your video page (Sigh of relief). Simply go to *my videos* and you will see toggle links in the sort bar that allow you to switch between Uploaded only/All.

We understand this feature was missing for a while and we're glad its back. Just thought you all would want to know.

Good afternoon. Our designers and engineers finished the new video page. Take a look at Remyyy's video Break Time to see it in action.

I think it is a huge improvement over the previous version. Here's what's new:

- Bigger video: 506 pixels wide instead of 460.
- Better quality video: 500kbps, instead of 400kbps (Down the road, we will convert your old videos to higher quality automatically; if you want it now, you can Replace the video)
- Better video player: faster, you can Share, Embed, or Like it from anywhere you can watch it (Albums, Channels, or on external sites).
- There's now a separate Settings page for each video. This means no more clumsy in-line editing.
- New upload page: It's actually built-in to the settings page. So you can upload and edit clips in the same way, instead of having two separate interfaces. The uploading process is more stable and responsive.
- Easier, faster friend finder for cast and privacy. It shows your contacts, by default, instead of any random users who match your search text.
- The Share and Embed popups are much easier now; try them!
- If the video belongs to a Channel or Album, you will see it prominently next to the video. This will help you discover other related videos, but tastefully, ie, instead of plastering "Related Videos" thumbnails everywhere.

Coming soon:

- "My Videos" will only be videos you uploaded (ie, back to normal!). You will still be able to browse all videos you have a credit for, but they won't be "your" videos.
- New home page, making it easier to discover new videos and to manage your inbox. We're simplifying things.
- iPhone integration. Not really but I wish; the YouTube app on there sure does suck. "Oh, hey, I can watch 'The Evolution of Dance' again, great." Apple, what's going on? How about allying yourself with a company that complements, not contradicts, your philosophies?

As usual, post your comments and questions below for personal responses.

Until very recently, Vimeo had a big problem. Although it was easy to upload video, there was no way to organize your videos. Now, with two new features, we have solved that problem.

The first is Channels. When you create a Channel, you are creating a new video-based website. The subject of your Channel can be anything: base it around a band, a family, a style of filmmaking, or just show off your best stuff. If you want a friend to help you out, you can co-moderate with them. As moderators, only you can post to the Channel, so it's not a free-for-all like tag-based projects.

On the side of each Channel are a few boxes, which you can fully customize. Observe the personal touch that annatruus achieved by customizing the colors and language of her Channel, Photomotion.

Anyone can subscribe to your Channel, so when you post a new video, it will appear in their Inbox on the home page. dalas made a tour of Channels; take a watch!



You can find new Channels here, or by clicking on the box in the upper-right corner of the Vimeo homepage.

The other new feature is Albums, which launched yesterday. An Album is simply a group of your videos. For example, I made one for my best lip dubbing videos. Like Channels, a video can be added to an Album from the video's page, or when you upload. Watch the video below for a tour!



If you would like to know what we're working on next, it's a new home page (one that shows you videos right away, like the old v4 homepage), a fix for the "My Videos" issue (finally), and a new video page. We have smaller projects underway, as well, but these are the most-demanded changes.