Vimeo

It's a video platform software as a service that is free to utilize. In my opinion, it is in the top five leading authority video websites online with Youtube and Facebook as one or two. And perhaps Vine is among them as well. Accounts are very easy to use with a simple, minimal design yet have a lot of functionality available. Accounts are currently basic which is free and includes five hundred megabytes of video uploading per week or twenty five gigabytes per year which are enough for almost anyone. The free plan has basic analytics too which are reported on your home page which I like. There are paid upgrades which range from about fifty dollars per year to about four hundred dollars per year and this includes a lot more storage capabilities, advanced analytics, advanced customization and privacy settings and better support. Their premium plan for under two hundred dollars per year includes complete branding of your video player. So you can label the video player with your business which is cool. And you can use the on demand distribution network which is worldwide to sell access to your videos as rentals, subscription based or to purchase which is great value in my opinion. You can also set your own prices and change your distribution regions easily, which adds more value to the account. It's extremely mobile friendly and is designed to work with any possible setup you can imagine. From smartphones to tablets, laptops, and computers. And has native integrations for Chromecast, Apple TV, Xbox 360, Roku, Panasonic VIERA, Philips Smart LED, Amazon Fire TV and Samsung TV so it's widely adopted across several hardware platforms. It's also natively integrated with several relevant softwares such as Final Cut, iMovie, QuickTime, Couch Mode for Chrome, ArcSoft MediaImpressions and Corel VideoStudio so that's good to know as well. Your home page is well set up with everything basically available at a glance which works without being too busy or overwhelming which is how Youtube seemed before I used it consistently. Vimeo doesn't have that issue nearly as much without the multiple columns, grid style presentation of videos like Youtube has so it's not too much going on at once while remaining user friendly.

In terms of possible visibility to your video Youtube or Facebook are still among my first choices and though I include Vimeo in my video syndication for clients it's not a priority it that would be great if it had enough of traffic to offer a low cost video advertising platform. But I respect that they are known as the platform without advertising and that's what differentiates them most in their market. Though perhaps there are other partner opportunities only if you have a large successful product such as above. Vimeo also doesn't really have the ability to create the same following on Vimeo because of the lack of a cost effective paid advertising source provided by the company but you could still use Google Adwords or another traffic source and direct it to your Vimeo video.

I was curious to learn what the premium versions of Vimeo were offering and was pleasantly surprised with the value of their premium package in particular. For two hundred and twenty dollars Canadian per year you can get branded video hosting with the ability to rent them, have people subscribe to them or purchase them. These features in my opinion are really good value and differentiate Vimeo most from the other platforms besides the fact it is ad free.