Vimeo's Tipping Point?

by phil on Wednesday Oct 1, 2008 5:51 PM

I'm starting to notice people sharing Vimeo links instead of YouTube. I first started paying attention to Vimeo in a corporate setting. Employees wanted to privately share high-def screencasts, and Vimeo is the first thing that came to mind, even though YouTube already has those features.

I wonder how the video-sharing marketplace will look like in 10 years. Are there legitimate threats to YouTube? Being the underdog certainly helps Vimeo. YouTube is somewhat locked into their community and screen resolution. YouTube's visual layout is an ingrained part of web surfers' consciousness, and tampering with it could hurt YouTube's brand. YouTube did try to expand its feature-set by adding "Watch in high-quality" links but nobody really clicks on those.