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YouTube for ArtistesThe Web video site Vimeo goes after an audience tired of the poorly lit basement aesthetic.

By Farhad ManjooPosted Tuesday, April 7, 2009, at 5:54 PM ET

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Vimeo was founded in the fall of 2004 by filmmaker and Web entrepreneur Jakob Lodwick, who was among the crew of young men who also started two other great collections of online fun, CollegeHumor and BustedTees. YouTube launched a few months later but took off immediately on the strength of user-generated viral hits and a smorgasbord of copyrighted clips from TV shows and movies. YouTube, which is now owned by Google and has been sued by Hollywood, has since instituted much stricter rules on the kinds of videos allowed on the site, but Vimeo's guidelines are even less permissive. Vimeo lets you post only videos that you've created yourself; it won't even let you post screen captures from your greatest video-game victories. YouTube allows studios to post movie trailers or clips from TV shows while Vimeo prohibits such commercial videos. Vimeo makes money through ads it posts on the site—though never on the videos—and from a $60-a-year subscription program for people who want to upload more than 500 MB of video files per week. (Vimeo declined to say whether it's profitable; the site's traffic, though, has increased by nearly 700 percent during the last year.)

For many years, Vimeo, like other video sites, languished in obscurity under YouTube's shadow. In 2006, Barry Diller's Internet conglomerate IAC purchased a controlling stake in CollegeHumor, BustedTees, and Vimeo; Lodwick and the company didn't see eye to eye, and in late 2007, IAC fired him. Around that time, Vimeo launched its high-definition service, making it the first big site to offer filmmakers a chance to stream videos that didn't look as if they were shot on a cell phone. Vimeo's timing was just right; high-def cameras were just starting to become more widely available, and people looking for an alternative to YouTube's grainy ghetto began to flock to Vimeo. "We refused to believe that video quality online couldn't be amazing," says Blake Whitman, a community director at Vimeo. "We thought that HD was the future, and we knew it was technically possible—and we got some really incredible filmmakers, motion graphics artists, and animators who were looking for the highest-quality site out there."

In particular, Vimeo began to attract photographers who wanted to stream the sort of footage that wouldn't really work on YouTube. Here's a shining example: On the first warm-weather weekend of 2008, Keith Loutit, a photographer in Australia, planted himself on the ridges overlooking Tamarama Beach, in Sydney. His high-def camera was outfitted with a series of tilt-shift lenses, which produce a shallow depth of field, making a scene resemble a miniature town. The result is an enchanting landscape that one can watch several times over. (Loutit has made several other videos in this style.)

Beached from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Many of Vimeo's competitors, including YouTube, have since given users the option of posting high-definition videos. Vimeo's continued appeal comes from the atmosphere that developed from this emphasis on good videos. For instance, the staff puts out ideas for filmmakers to tackle on the weekends—things like creating an homage to your favorite Vimeo video or making an orchestra out of everyday objects. Vimeo's staff also regularly post funny videos of their own.

These efforts make Vimeo seem like a small town, a sensibility that's especially apparent on the comment threads attached to videos. Where YouTube is notorious for attracting the most inane and vile commenters on the Web, people who respond to Vimeo videos are unbelievably nice. "I won't say you'll never find a negative comment, but in more than two years, I've literally seen 20 negative comments," Whitman says. "And I've watched 50,000 videos easily."

It's unlikely that Vimeo will ever be as big as YouTube, though that's not really its aim. With size comes all kinds of problems—lots of terrible videos, lots of terrible commenters. What Vimeo proves is that online, being well-behind the leader has its benefits. I'll always head to YouTube when I'm looking for the next viral sensation; for the real talent, though, I'll go to Vimeo.

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Farhad Manjoo is Slate's technology columnist and the author of True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society. You can e-mail him at and follow him on Twitter.

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