So it seems like things have cooled off a bit in terms of the high volume of uploads. We've added a few more machines which has cut the conversion time down considerably. Thank Peter, Ted, and Andrew for their hard work on this, and hopefully we'll be ready for the next big spike.

Thanks again for everyone's patience.

Love,

Vimeo

p.s. We're just about to launch something new and big. People get ready!

Update: Things seem to be back to normal for now, there may still be some delays later. For a video recap of this post, be sure to check out this video by Carleton Torpin.

If you've uploaded a video in the past 48 hours or so you've probably noticed the extremely long wait times when it comes to your video getting converted to Flash. First off, we're sorry! Around here minimizing the amount of time it takes from upload to viewing has always been a priority, so having to wait around for hours to see your video is just unacceptable.

Here's a little background on why this is happening:

Over the past several months we've been planning to beef up our Flash encoding infrastructure to be able to encode a lot more videos at the same time. These improvements are still a few weeks a way. Earlier this week, Stage6 (a well-known and large video sharing site) announced they were shutting down completely, and users only had until the end of this week to move their videos off. For us, this is a good problem. A lot of great people from Stage6 have migrated here (hi guys!), brought some awesome videos with them, and we're very excited to have them. Unfortunately, this sudden and extreme influx crossed a tipping point where people were uploading faster than we could encode given our current setup. Normally, a backup like this clears up quickly when traffic dies down. However, people were uploading at a furious pace right through the night, and our encoding servers just haven't had a chance to catch up.

Today we've taken some immediate steps to fix the problem:

- Added extra encoding machines (including borrowing some from our office buddies at CollegeHumor)
- Rolled out additional upload servers so transfer times stay speedy
- Temporarily reduced the number of thumbnails you can choose to 3 (you can still upload custom thumbnails)
- Optimized our internal file shuffling techniques so things get where they need to be faster
- Sacrificed a goat

Just to give you a sense of the level of traffic we're dealing with right now, on Monday we had more uploads in one hour that we did in an average day a year ago. At peak hours yesterday we were getting 50-75% more uploads than we were last week. Thanks to Peter, we've managed to speed up the encoding process significantly and it looks like we've reached a point where we can stay ahead of the flood of videos coming our way.

Unfortunately, it's still going to take awhile to work though the videos that are currently queued up. We may disable uploading for a few hours tonight (after 12 am EST) to allow our machines to catch up.

Again, sorry for the inconvenience. In the mean time, grab a drink and relax. We'll automatically email you when your video has finished encoding.

Well folks, it looks like we've been nominated for another award!

This time, it's the CNET Webware 100 Awards, and voting opened up today, so VOTE HERE to bring the award home to Vimeo. Voting will close on March 31, 2008.

Thanks for helping us to get recognized time and time again for what we bring to the world of video sharing.

Vimeo has teamed up with Citysearch and your stomach to give you a chance to win a $1,000 American Express card just by doing two things that you love to do: eat good food and make great videos!

Here's how it works: You make a video, up to 30 seconds in length, about your favorite food from your favorite place to eat. Make sure you take a bite of it! Then, go here to officially submit it:

http://vimeo.com/loveatfirstbite

You can submit your videos any time from now until the end of March 7th, 2008.

There is so much talent on Vimeo, we're looking forward to lots of great entries!

Make sure you read the full contest rules for all the details.

Good luck!

Tomorrow, February 16, will mark Vimeo's third birthday.

We're so happy that we've been able to share three years of video-friendship with you guys! I was looking back through some early uploads, and the power of video to evoke strong memories never ceases to amaze me.

We're feeling more focused than ever, and I think 2008 is going to be an incredible year for us all (that means you guys too!).

I wanted to post this a day early, in case anyone wants to make birthday videos to post tomorrow.

Party on!

We just rolled out our newest feature: Vimeo Daily Update. Now you can get a daily email that summarizes all the stuff that happened in the past 24 hours. This email can show you your latest subscription videos, recent videos your contacts have liked, recent comments left by your contacts, new friends your contacts have made, and even a little stats summary to keep you informed of whats happening with your videos.

Of course you can customize your daily update so that you only get the information you want, delivered right to your email inbox.

Sign up now at: www.vimeo.com/settings/notifications

Now when you search for videos and people on Vimeo, you have more options for sorting and filtering your search results. These new options will help you to refine your search and pinpoint exactly what you're looking for.

In addition to these improvements, we've also added the ability to search Channels, which should allow you to find and subscribe to some really great sources of Vimeo's best videos.

We wanted to get this much-requested feature to you as soon as possible, so please note that we are still working on improving the relevancy of the Channels search results.

Tags are a great way to organize your content around themes, places, events or basically anything you can think of. We also believe an even greater power of tags
lies in their ability to pool together content from many different sources in a granular way.

Sure, browsing all Vimeo videos with a certain tag of your interest was useful -- but what if you wanted to narrow the field a bit and drill down into more specific contexts?

We've just made a few changes to tag browsing that we'd like to tell you about.
Click a tag from a video page an enjoy a new expanded tag browsing experience.
Now you can browse videos with a certain tag in your videos, all videos, your contacts' videos and more.

Ever wondered what other Vimeo members like to use the same tags you do? Wonder who tags 'me' most? Well, now while browsing a tag we'll also show you what other users use that tag most.



Along with an improved search field, we hope these changes allow you to find related content and other members with common interests more easily.