Staff Blog

by Andrea Allen
August 4th, 2010

Attention New Yorkers and nearby New Yorkers,

Tuesday, August 10 is the next scheduled Vimeo Offline Event. This one is especially near and dear to my heart because along with the amazing documentaries we're screening, it features my favorite type of Vimeo videos -- Everyday Life vids.

When I first joined Vimeo, I was immediately drawn in by the creativity of the people uploading to the site. At the time, we had 15 megs of upload space per week, and everyone contributed pieces of their lives through short, non-scripted videos and everyday clips. Many of us compiled, and thoughtfully edited together those clips to create vidblogs, or video diaries. It occurred to me as we were throwing around ideas for this Offline Event that these everyday life videos are a sort of documentary, personal documentary.

So we scoured the site for the most compelling documentary films and the absolute best everyday life videos and on Tuesday the 10th, we'll Keep It Real all evening. Come hang out with fellow Vimeans, get your drink and snack on with the Vimeo Staff, and watch the most original Vimeo videos on beautiful HD projectors at SPiNyc.

Doors open at 8:30 p.m. Come early to eat some food, enjoy our DJ, and get a good seat.

The event is free, but seating is limited so be sure to RSVP with our partners in crime, BFD Productions.

Poster tag credit goes to one of Vimeo's hotshot developers Sean Nelson!

by Andrea Allen
July 30th, 2010

Hallo Vimeans,

I'm very excited about this hybrid Weekend Project/Contest because participating means you double your chances of winning something! Amstel Light teamed up with Vimeo to inspire you to share a creative narrative short film capturing how an open-minded approach lives in your town. Do you have a stellar art community, or an awesome underground music scene? How about some eclectic or eccentric characters in the community? Show us how your town is unique.



The coolest part of the Amstel Light contest is that the winner gets a round-trip ticket to Amsterdam to attend the Vimeo Festival and Awards event happening there in September. I'm going to be there, so you'll be in good company!

The winner of the Weekend Project will receive 2 extra gigs of upload space per week and free Vimeo Tshirt, or free Plus Account! The runner up will receive 1 gig of extra upload space per week.

To submit your entry in the "One Dam Good Town" Amstel Light contest, go to the Amstel Group page: http://vimeo.com/groups/amstel. Be sure that you read the Official Rules posted there. (Note that if you're not eligibile to enter the Amstel Light contest for some reason, you can still enter the Weekend Project.)

Be sure to also submit your video to the Weekend Project Group too, otherwise it will not be considered for the Weekend Project prizes.

Submissions to both the Amstel Light contest and the Weekend Project are due Aug 4, 2010.

Hope to see you in Amsterdam!

Prosit,
Andrea

by dalas verdugo
July 29th, 2010

Submissions for Vimeo's First Annual Festival and Awards have been pouring in, but one crucial entry is missing: YOURS!

We wanted to remind you that there are only two days left to get your entry in for your chance at fame and fortune. That's a Vimeo Award and a shot at $25,000 towards your next film. If you have premiered a video online between June 3, 2008 and July 30, 2010, you should be filling out your submission form right now. Don't forget that Plus users get a discounted entry fee. For the price of a cup of coffee, you could give a young video a chance at success.

Maybe you looked at the list of judges before and thought to yourself, "Yeah, those judges are amazing, but world renowned recording artist M.I.A. is not among them." Well now you are wrong, my friend! We've now got M.I.A. on board to judge the Music Video category, along with

-Lawrence Lessig judging the Remix category (this guy is THE expert on the subject)
-Paola Antonelli, who is Senior Curator at The Museum of Modern Art, which you've probably heard of
-Rian Johnson, Sundance prize winner and writer / director of some amazing films like Brick and The Brothers Bloom
-Ted Hope, Producer on over sixty films such as 21 Grams, American Splendor, Happiness, the list goes on

We are not playing around when it comes to these judges. We've lined up one heck of a panel, so now do your part and submit your work before it's too late. You can find all of the details and the submission form over at vimeoawards.com

Good luck!

by Julia Quinn
July 26th, 2010

Hi Vimeo people!

I have a sad announcement to make: this is my last week working for Vimeo. It's been a great three years here, but I have to go finish college now! So, here goes my final This Week in Vimeo.




This week I would like to feature Vimeo user Scott Foley. Scott joined Vimeo in July 2008. He hails from Boston and sometimes Long Island, too. I don't know much about him other than he makes great videos and according to his Vimeo profile he sometimes feels like LL Cool J. Fair enough. Be sure to check out some of his work, especially his most recent video Burnt Drive Drive.


Over the weekend I came across this fun new channel called Tryptophanatic Netvision (try saying that 5 times fast). This channel features an eclectic group of videos ranging from tripadelic motion graphics to mind warping experiments. "Netvision is geared to alter your very being to a higher level of super hue-man exaltation and inspiration." Awesome.


As for groups this week, I would like to feature a group called Outdoor Artistry aka Street Art and Graffiti. This group is for videos involving street art and or graffiti. It has a great collection of cool street art from around the world. Take some time, look around!




Finally, don't forget that the Vimeo Festival and Awards is accepting submissions for the remainder of July, but that's less than one week away at this point. July 31st is coming up quick! For details please refer to the awards site.

Love,
Julia

by dalas verdugo
July 22nd, 2010

Hey everybody!

We've got more great news for you today. One aspect of Vimeo that we know you love is the extensive control you have over how and where your videos are seen. In the past, it could be a little time consuming to check each of your videos and make sure that the settings were exactly the way you wanted them. Well those days are over, because we now have a way for you to change the Privacy settings for all of your videos on one page!

Set a password for all of your videos; choose to only let your contacts view your videos; allow or prevent people from downloading the source files; control who can comment on all of your videos. All at once. And if you're a Plus member you'll find all the advanced options here too. Make all of your videos mobile-ready; restrict playback to certain sites; hide your videos on Vimeo; allow HD embedding. You can do this for all of your videos, or just apply it to the videos you upload from now on. It's all right here on your new Video Preferences page.

Speaking of HD embedding, that brings us to our other exciting news. Yeah, there's more. We've done some serious number crunching (maybe even used a slide-rule), and decided that it makes the most sense to do away with the limits on HD embedding that Plus members were previously restricted by. Plus members no longer have to ration their precious HD embed plays! You're free to spread your beautiful HD videos far and wide. Unlimited HD embedding is REAL.

We will be automatically refunding anyone who purchased extra HD embed plays within the past 30 days. So that's extra cash back to spend on a party celebrating your new, unlimited existence!

We're very proud of the progress the Vimeo Plus service has made over the past two years. With no limits on total storage space, bandwidth, duration, and now HD embeds, along with video encoding that aims for the highest quality, is there any doubt that Vimeo is the absolute best site to host your videos? Check out the chart below to see how much the Plus service has improved in a short time. We only plan to keep making it better, so stick around and bring all your friends!

Love,

The Vimeo Folks

by Matt Schwarz
July 20th, 2010

Hey Vimeo!

Are your eyeballs hungry for some visually stimulating content? Of course they are, otherwise you wouldn't be here! Well good thing the Eye Candy for Strangers event is coming up. On Thursday, July 29th at Brooklyn Bowl feast your eyes on some of the most visual enticing videos on Vimeo, hand selected from the awesome Eye Candy For Strangers Group. Have a video you think would be a great addition to the event? Submit any motion graphic art, animation, short films, music videos, and VJ visuals of ten minutes or less, via the Eye Candy For Strangers Vimeo Group.



On top of showing these great videos, there will be musical performances by Blockhead and Psyberpixie, bring those dancing shoes! So if you like chill music, good videos, and bowling, then there's absolutely no reason you shouldn't attend! Many of us from the Vimeo Staff will be there and we'd love to meet you all.

The doors will open at 6PM, with Blockhead and Psyberpixie starting at 8PM. It only costs $5 for advanced tickets, $7 at the door, you can reserve some here: http://ticketf.ly/EyeCandyBB or you can RSVP on Facebook here and get in for free ;)

Let's get our mind blown together, but just stand a little to the left when it happens, I don't need your mind juice on my shirt.

by Daniel Hayek
July 19th, 2010

Hi Vimeo,

I hope you all had a great weekend and are relaxed, refreshed, and ready for the week. To help ease into the swing of things let's do a little this week in Vimeo.



As many of you know Vimeo is home to many video professionals and Casey Neistat is no exception. Casey, along with his brother Van, have recently debuted a show on HBO, but you don't need to flip on the TV to check out some hilarious, insightful, entertaining content about everyday life matters like riding the subway or using the internet. For starters I would recommend checking out this video about chat roulette or this story about the ethics of stealing a bike in a modern city. Through a combination of stop action, comedic narration, and engaging storytelling Casey's video's will definitely leave you impressed and with a unique perspective. Go forth explore as you're bound to find several other video gems on his profile.



Next up we're going to get you pumped for the week with the Paintball Channel. If you've ever been paint balling you can relive the agony of defeat and the triumph of victory from a sport for the strategic minded. If you've never played, consider this channel a safe way to explore a sport without having to put on all that protective gear.



Now let's mellow it out a bit with the HD Fractal Trips Group. Go ahead and let your mind wander into a trance from gazing at these visualizations of complicated mathematics. I recommend starting here and working your way through this mind bending collection of videos.



Finally, don't forget that the Vimeo Festival and Awards is accepting submissions for the remainder of July, but that's less than two weeks away at this point. July 31st is coming up quick! For details please refer to the awards site.

by Sam Morrill
July 15th, 2010

Yo Vimeo!

The first ever Vimeo Festival + Awards is less than three months away! We can almost hear the flashbulbs popping as the entire Vimeo community glides over a red carpet pointed straight towards immortality!

Okay, enough hyperbole. I'm here to announce this week's Weekend Project. If you've spent any time at all on Vimeo during the last couple of months, chances are you've seen one of the amazing videos we've featured on the site, promoting the Vimeo Festival + Awards. And if you haven't, boy do I feel sorry for you! Either way, they're all totally worth a look:



All of these promo videos were made by Vimeo users and are a testament to the unparalleled creativity and talent of our users. We're now extending a call to everyone on the site to make their own promo spot for the Vimeo Festival + Awards.

The rules are simple. Your video should be 30 seconds long (no more, no less.) It must end with the Vimeo Festival + Awards logo, which can be downloaded here. And it should embody the spirit of the event, celebrating video creators in a unique and interesting way.

There will be our usual prizes: The winner will take home a fully loaded Plus account or 25,000 HD Embeds if they are already Plus. And the runner-up will receive an extra 1 GB of upload capacity or 10,000 HD Embeds if they are already a Plus member.

In addition to these sweet prizes, the winner will have their video featured on the site along with the rest of the promo videos! This is an excellent opportunity to get your work out there.

Submissions are due Tuesday (7/20) at 11:59 PM (EST). Be sure to submit your video to the Weekend Project Group otherwise it will not be considered. Please note that the Community Staff will approve videos for inclusion into the Group and will also be selecting the winning videos.

Peace, love and Vimeo.

Sam

**UPDATE**

We have winners! I repeat: We have winners! But before I get to that, I just want to say how impressed the whole Vimeo Staff was with this batch of Weekend Project submissions. So impressed, in fact, that we've decided to be extra generous and name two winners and two runners-up!

That said, our two runners-up for this week's Vimeo Weekend project are SPDL lab° for their video Vimeo Festival + Awards - eye lotion and MrH for his video Vimeo Festival + Awards: Why We Make Stuff. Each runner-up will receive an extra 1 GB of upload capacity for their efforts!

And our two winners are Ovi Balc for his video Vimeo Festival + Awards - Stencil and unlime for their video Vimeo Festival + Awards Promo. Both of them will receive a brand spanking new Plus account and their videos will each be featured on the site.

Congratulations to everyone who submitted. We hope to see you all at the big event in October!