Staff Blog

Here at the sprawling Vimeo office park, we have an end-of-the-year tradition. As we draw near the final page of our LOLCats LOL-A-Day calendar, we always take a few moments to stand in front of a large mirror and say to ourselves, somewhat accusatorily, "So, what did you accomplish this year?"

While we're reluctant to blow our own trumpets, we will shyly admit that we accomplished kind of sort of a lot in 2011. And so here is how we plan to reply to ourselves, not even remotely defensively, even though that would be completely warranted considering the tone of the question:

We made the Vimeo community way huger
That's not just a vaguely hyperbolic statement – we have numbers to back it up. Since last year at around this time, our unique visitors have increased by 48%, from 44 million to 64 million (Nov 2010 vs Nov 2011), which seems pretty impressive until you compare it to the growth in our membership, which went up a whopping 82%, from 5 million to 9.1 million (again Nov 2010 vs Nov 2011). And we're slaving over our keyboards to make sure this trend continues.

We launched the daylights out of Vimeo PRO
Earlier this year we pulled the wraps off Vimeo PRO, a professional-grade video hosting platform. Built for small businesses and commercial use, Vimeo PRO is an enterprise-level platform that gives companies full control over their videos. We kept the price ridiculously low, so companies can spend money on more important things, like upgrading their staplers.

We made Music Store
Adding music to videos became a lot easier this past September when we launched Music Store, a one-stop shop for finding and licensing high-quality music. It's overflowing with 45,000 tracks in diverse categories such as "Partying" and "Breaking Up." We worked hard to make it really affordable, and thousands of tracks are available for exactly zero dollars.

We gave people Perks
In November, we introduced Vimeo Perks – product discounts exclusively for PRO and Plus members. We feel that if people give us money, we should help them save money, so we're using our special connections to arrange sweet deals on cameras, accessories, and more.

We announced the next Vimeo Festival + Awards
Yup, we're doing it again. The 2012 Festival + Awards, taking place next June in New York City, will feature new judges, more categories, and bigger prizes. Submissions are now open, and we can't wait to see what you've shot.

We finally figured out how to accept Paypal
But we still prefer cash left in a briefcase on our doorstep.

We invented new ways to watch Vimeo
People still watch Vimeo primarily on computers, but this year saw a so-called "major uptick" in TV and mobile use. Vimeo is now compatible with a wild array of devices from Apple, Google, Samsung, Roku, Western Digital, and more. If all goes according to plan, you'll be able to watch Vimeo on the insides of your eyeballs by this time next year.

We welcomed videos up to 5GB
Sometimes a really amazing video can take up an amazingly large amount of hard drive space, so we gave Vimeo Plus members the ability to upload videos up to 5GB.

We published our 100th Video School Lesson
And considering we published the very first lesson just over a year ago, that's a lot of lessons in one year – 0.273972 per day, approximately. We covered topics such as storyboarding, scary special effects, crop factor, and something that might come in handy right about now, capturing great holiday videos. We've got lots more lessons coming down the pike, and hopefully at some point we'll show you how to recreate that rad scene from The Matrix.

We grew our team whole bunch
Twelve months ago, Vimeo had just 32 people trotting along in human-sized hamster wheels. Now we've got 60. That's a 94% growth rate! If we keep up this torrid pace, we should overtake India by 2019. If you want to get involved in this population explosion, check out our current job openings.

We planned a bunch of new stuff that we can't tell you about yet
Like REALLY BIG STUFF. You'll know about some of it really soon, and other things a little later. Sorry to be cryptic. We like keeping you on the edge of your armchair.

Okay, now that we've talked about ourselves way too much, let's talk about the reason we've been able to do all this fancy accomplishin' – you. We've been able to achieve all of these things because of your unshakeable commitment, incisive feedback, crazy out-of-the blue ideas, undying enthusiasm, major willingness to share, and of course magical ability to make beautiful, hilarious, truthful videos that we simply can't tear our eyes away from. Thanks for everything you've done for us this year. See you in 2012.

One year ago you—yes, you— inspired us to launch a new destination called Vimeo Video School. What happened is we noticed Vimeo was more than a place to merely watch stuff—it had become a rich community of talented creators who make and share incredible videos every day. It didn't take us long to realize that we could harness people's sharp skills and deep knowledge to help the community at large. A year later we've built up an entire library of lessons to help anyone—from the total beginner to the more seasoned auteur— make better videos. And all of these lessons were inspired by watching the great videos you make.

If you're unfamiliar with Vimeo Video School, a great place to start is our categories. We have 10 categories that cover everything you'd ever want to know about making awesome videos, from Gear and Editing to Shooting and Sound. Most of our lessons are based around videos created by knowledgeable Vimeo Community members, and everything has been vetted by the Staff for educational merit and entertainment value.

In just a year, we've crafted over 100 lessons. Below are a few that make us feel a little wistful:

+ Tripod Tricks
+ Holiday Video Tips
+ Scary Special Effects
+ Crop Factor
+ Zoom vs Moving Camera
+ Room Tone
+ Setting the Pace
+ Storyboarding Basics
+ Capturing Good Sound
+ Tilt Shift

And because some video skills require more than one lesson to master, we cranked out a few series in our first year, starting with Video 101— a beginner's guide to selecting a camera, shooting footage, and editing videos. After that, Philip Bloom and Vimeo's own Andrea Allen took us through DSLR Basics. Later on, Vincent Laforet and Vimeo's official spirit animal Blake Whitman walked us through the ins and outs of lenses. We've got some more series in the pipeline, and we can't wait to unleash them on you in multipart fashion!

Let us reiterate— none of this would be possible without you, our beloved community. You've lended us your videos, told us what you want to learn about, and given us lots of super-helpful feedback along the way. Going forward, we'll be working more closely with many more of you, and we can't wait to see what will come of our collaborations. For a sneak peek at how future lessons might go down, see our recent collab with Nick Campbell on how to create title sequences. It's a great time to be making videos, and we hope to help you make the most of it with lessons that are clear, concise, and hopefully a lot of fun.

On behalf of everyone at Vimeo, thank you for a wonderful first year. We learned a lot, and we hope you did too!

P.S. If you have a video you'd like for us to consider adding to our library please add it to our Group here and we'll review it! Also if you have suggestions for topics you'd like for us to cover, let us know in the comments below!

Seasons greetings, my Vimeo family!

The holiday season is upon us! And no matter what holiday you celebrate, I'm willing to bet your seasonal festivities will include one important element: family!

Sure, dad may wear the dorkiest of Christmas ties and your crazy Uncle Carlos may drink one too many whiskey sours and tell stories inappropriate for even the most progressive of dinner tables, but in the end, they're family! You know you love 'em.

So to get you into the festive, familial spirit, this Vimeo weekend project is all about the people nearest and dearest to your heart.

Your challenge is to make a video about a family story, memory or moment in time — and we'd like to you use archival media to tell this story. We want to see your creative treatment of a moment from the past!

Here are the rules:
1. You must tell a story about a family. You can tell a story about your own family, or help a friend or complete stranger off the street tell a story about their families. As long as there is at least one familial relation mentioned, you're good!

2. You must use archival media of some kind. This could mean very old 8 or 16mm films, home videos, photographs, or sound recordings.

3. Your video must be 3 minutes or less.

Here's a great example by Sean David Christensen, in which he mixes archive footage and photos with footage shot more recently to tell the story of when his father shaved his mustache:



Another great example is Casey Neistat's sweet little vignette about his 92 year-old tap dancing grandmother:



Here are some things to keep in mind:

-We're using "family" as a loose term, as we realize families come in all shapes and sizes. If the people you consider "family" and want to share a story about aren't blood related, that's fine. DNA testing will not be part of the judging process!

-It's always fun to dust off those old family photo albums, or watch old film reels and VHS tapes, but if you don't have time to take a jaunt down memory lane, don't sweat it! Even just one photograph will do!

-Feel free to use any medium you'd like to tell the story. If animation is your thing, try animating to an old audio recording, or to the audio from a home movie. Or use a photo in your animation! This lovely example from Moth mixes animation and old home movie footage:



-If you don't have much documentation of the moment you want to tell a story about, try filming some reenactments!

-Your story doesn't need to follow a typical narrative structure. Your video could be evocative of a past memory.

-I'm sure your family members will love anything you make, but try to tell your story in a way that will appeal to a wider audience than just the huddle of people around the TV at grandma's house on Christmas day. Make sure things are explained for those who aren't familiar with your family, and that you include only the essential facts and most important details.

A few more things:

Make sure to submit your video to the Weekend Project Group.

Please remember that only videos made specifically for this project will be considered. All submitted videos must be approved by the Vimeo Staff before appearing in the Group, so don't worry if your video does not show up at first, we'll get to it, promise!

All submissions are due on Tuesday, December 20th at 11:59 PM (EST).

The winner of this contest will get a free Plus account, or if you're already a Plus member, we're going to let you gift the Plus to whomever you choose (along with an extra 2.5 GB of upload space)! The runner-up will receive an extra 2.5 GB of upload capacity whether Plus or not.

We hope that this project will bring you closer to your loved ones! I recently made a little video exploring an old 8mm film that my mom and her brothers made when they were kids that has since become a legend of sorts in my family. It was great to dust off the 8mm footage and also interview my family members.

So take a break from the holiday shopping and get creative! In my opinion, the best gifts are always handmade and from the heart. Your family members just might enjoy a little video present this holiday season!

***UPDATE*** We had 15 awesome submissions for this project, and we're very pleased to announce that the winner is Chris Zabriskie with his video Disneyland 1990, and our runner up is Seth Mostly Media with his entry, Mom's Camera. Thanks for sharing your home movies, childhood memories and personal stories with us. We loved what you came up with, and your families will love them too!!! Happy holidays!

The word "excited" doesn't do justice to our emotions right now. We're thrilled, pumped, tickled 2,012 shades of pink, and jazzed to the max to announce that the Vimeo Festival + Awards are back! In fact, submissions are now open, so it's time to throw humility to the wind and show off the amazing masterpieces you've been slaving over. We want to see them!

In case you have no idea what we're talking about: The Vimeo Festival + Awards are a celebration of the best original videos premiered online. This isn't just a Vimeo thing, it's a video thing – everyone is invited to participate. It's not just an online thing, either. The 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards will culminate in an offline event held in the real physical world next June. We'll share more details when the time is right, and in the meantime you can learn more about the 2012 Festival + Awards on the website we designed expressly to tell you about them.

So – about these new awards. People always say things like, "They're better than ever!" But seriously, if the 2010 Festival + Awards knocked your socks off, the 2012 version will absolutely launch your argyles into the stratosphere. There's lots of new stuff to love, including:

New Categories
We're covering all your favorite categories from 2010, and, because the world of online video is growing like a teenager who sleeps too much, we're introducing four new ones: Action Sports, Advertising, Fashion, and Lyrical. See the full list of categories »

New Judges
We've plundered our Rolodexes and corralled some incredibly distinguished individuals to evaluate your submissions. To wet your whistle, we can reveal that the new-category judges are skate legend Stacy Peralta (Action Sports), ad genius David Droga (Advertising), fashion photographer extraordinaire Nick Knight (Fashion), and cinematography maven Philip Bloom (Lyrical). In addition, all of the 2010 winners will be on the 2012 jury! We'll unfurl the next round of big (and really massive) names in January.

New Prizes
Creativity should not go unrewarded, which is why each winners will receive a really sweet Vimeo t-shirt! Oh, and did we mention the t-shirt will be wrapped around a stack of cash? We're ponying up $5,000 grants for category winners and one $25,000 grand prize, all designed to help the recipients make new original work.

Sounds pretty fly, right? Before you submit, here are all the fine points of gory detail you need to know:

• Submissions will be accepted from December 13, 2011 through February 20, 2012.
• There is a $20 (U.S.) submission fee per video. The submission fee is $5 for Vimeo Plus and PRO members.
• Entrants can submit any original work that premiered anywhere online between July 31, 2010 and February 20, 2012, or any original work that has never been premiered. Videos that premiered online before July 31, 2010 are not eligible for submission.
• All entries must comply with the Official Rules of the Vimeo Festival + Awards. (We're typically not big fans of rules, but it's really important that you read these.)
• All submissions must be entered through www.vimeo.com/awards.

That's it! We hope you're as thrilled/pumped/tickled/jazzed as we are. Get inspired by reliving the 2010 Festival + Awards, and then go ahead - wow us!

Hey there Vimeo! As many of you know, making a full-length video can be a long and arduous process. Even after you come up with an amazing idea, the production can be more of a time commitment that you bargained for. Well, for this Weekend Project, we're giving you the opportunity to focus on the metaphorical appetizer portion of the movie-making process and skip the entree altogether. That's right, it's time to make some fake movie trailers!

Think back to all those times when you said to yourself, "Wow! This idea I have right now could be an awesome movie, but I just do not have the time to make a full movie at this point in my life!" With the weekend ahead of you, you've got the perfect amount of time to make a great trailer. It's okay to cut corners and string random scenes together because that's what trailers are all about - they intrigue the viewer to watch more. This weekend, we challenge you to make a 1-2 minute trailer for a fake movie in any genre you choose. To get your mind going in the right direction, here are a couple of my favorite trailers:





A few things:

Please remember that only videos made specifically for this project will be considered. All submitted videos must be approved by the Vimeo Staff before appearing in the Group, so don't worry if your video does not show up at first, we'll get to it, promise!

Try to keep your video under 2 minutes and make sure to submit your video to the Weekend Project Group.

All submissions are due on Tuesday, December 6th at 11:59 PM (EST).

The winner of this contest will get a free Plus account, or if you're already a Plus member, we're going to let you gift the Plus to whomever you choose (along with an extra 2.5 GB of upload space)! The runner-up will receive an extra 1 GB of upload capacity whether Plus or not.

Have fun, we really look forward to what you guys put together!

**UPDATE** We had a great turn out with 50 submissions for this project! It was a blast watching all of your trailers. Congratulations to our winner, Justin Teichen with his video, Stranglehold:



and our runner up, Julien Jauniaux with, Answer the Phone!:



Thank you for your submissions, we'll see you next time!

With the chaos of everyday life consuming our senses, it is nice to sit back and enjoy moments and experiences that are often overlooked. This project aims to study the forgotten moments and times in life that we often pass by without acknowledging. This weekend, capture the brevity of something weird and wonderful, like this little wasp that came back from the dead!



The rules? Well, it's pretty simple:
-Video must be exactly one minute long
-No camera movement (no panning, tilting, etc)
-No editing whatsoever (no titles, no music)
-Tag with '1 minute'
-Add to the Weekend Project Group and the 1 Minute Group

All submissions are due on Tuesday, November 22nd at 11:59 PM (EST).

Please remember that only videos made specifically for this project will be considered. All submitted videos must be approved by the Vimeo Staff before appearing in the Weekend Project Group, so don't worry if your video does not show up at first, we'll get to it, promise!

The winner of this contest will get a free Plus account, or if you're already a Plus member, we're going to let you gift the Plus to whomever you choose (along with an extra 2.5 GB of upload space)! The runner-up will receive an extra 1 GB of upload capacity whether Plus or not.

**UPDATE** Wow, we had over 200 awesome submissions for this project! It was such a pleasure seeing all of your weird and wonderful videos. Congratulations to our winner, schmueyvision with his video, Coot Crossing and our runner up, Geoff Gilson with 1 Minute: Blumenwalzer.
Thank you for your submissions, see you next time!

Today, Congress held hearings on the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), two bills that would give the power to the government and content owners to censor and block websites that host even just one piece of content that allegedly infringes a copyright. The video below addresses the Senate version of the PROTECT IP Act, but a much more severe House bill was just introduced and is set up to pass soon if we don't take action NOW. These bills threaten the very essence of the web and the communities that have risen from it.


PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet by Fight for the Future

Please stand with us to fight this legislation geared toward stifling free speech and innovation online.

Visit americancensorship.org to learn more and join the protest.

Hello my fine Vimeo friends,

Have you checked out the Vimeo Music Store yet? I've been cruising around it lately to get a feel for what it has to offer and let me tell you, it is like a treasure trove of great music, spanning all genres. If you aren't exactly sure what the Vimeo Music Store is all about, it is a section of our site that allows you guys to easily find, download and license music to use in your next video project.



Our partners at the Free Music Archive have just released the latest volume of their Tracks to Sync series for the month of November. In it, you will find eleven free, Creative Commons tracks that are just begging to be downloaded and used in a video. Check them out below and get those creative juices flowing! If you do end up using one, we would love to see it, so post it in the comments section below! Without further ado,