This month marks four-year anniversary of the launch of Youtube. In that four years, it has managed to hold down the crown of online video traffic. With sites like Vimeo and Hulu slowly growing, those days may be numbered.
If you’ve used Youtube long enough, you’re very familiar with the interface (which has been oft copied by sites like Break and Dailymotion), but lately it’s been showing it’s age. In an industry where looks are everything, it’s not exactly pretty. Check out this video on both Youtube and Vimeo:
Where the Hell is Matt? (Youtube)
Where the Hell is Matt? (Vimeo)
Off the bat, Vimeo has a more pleasing user interface. Plus, there’s even an official full HD download link (which the uploader can turn on and off). Note that the Youtube version just added HD options while Vimeo had it when the video was originally posted 8 months ago. Lastly, the Vimeo ads aren’t embedded in the video content, instead opting for a slot on the side. In general, I’ve found the ads to be just as relevant on Vimeo as they are on Youtube, albeit slightly more compelling and far less obtrusive. Based on all of that, which site would you rather watch this video on?
You may have also recently seen the new feature of annotations on Youtube videos. If you’ve ever wondered how they were going to spam video, here it is. I can’t count how many times I’ve cringed when one of those text blocks came up telling to visit x website. It’s distracting and cheesy looking, and while it’s a novel idea in theory, it has to go (I believe they’re may be an option to turn it off, although I haven’t figured it out yet).
Sure, Youtube has started adding HD content in the last month. Unfortunately, they’re also planning on making it impossible for anyone to download content off the site (all those third party download sites will be rendered useless). This may be a move appease major studios. But, it really makes no difference when you’ve automatically capped the video length to ten minutes. Who knows how much potential content they missed out on by placing this restriction?
Outside of the personal video market, Hulu has nailed downed the commercial content segment. With a slicker, faster interface, more quality content and a delivery system that can bring it to your television via Xbox Live or Roku, it’s light year’s ahead of anything Youtube’s got. To make matters worse, they seem to have figured out how to monetize their content with ads, without compromising quality.
While neither Vimeo or Hulu is close to the 70 million viewers on Youtube has, it really won’t matter unless the folks at Google can figure out a better long term plan. The migration from television to online video is accelerating, and with that more options are becoming available. As long as it has the content it has now, Youtube will continue to be relevant. But with that, the end of it’s reign as the go to video portal of choice is may be coming. And I couldn’t be happier.
I love watching videos online specially on Youtube. There are lots of music clips, movie clips and instructional videos on Youtube. I love em all.