Good afternoon. Our designers and engineers finished the new video page. Take a look at Remyyy's video Break Time to see it in action.

I think it is a huge improvement over the previous version. Here's what's new:

- Bigger video: 506 pixels wide instead of 460.
- Better quality video: 500kbps, instead of 400kbps (Down the road, we will convert your old videos to higher quality automatically; if you want it now, you can Replace the video)
- Better video player: faster, you can Share, Embed, or Like it from anywhere you can watch it (Albums, Channels, or on external sites).
- There's now a separate Settings page for each video. This means no more clumsy in-line editing.
- New upload page: It's actually built-in to the settings page. So you can upload and edit clips in the same way, instead of having two separate interfaces. The uploading process is more stable and responsive.
- Easier, faster friend finder for cast and privacy. It shows your contacts, by default, instead of any random users who match your search text.
- The Share and Embed popups are much easier now; try them!
- If the video belongs to a Channel or Album, you will see it prominently next to the video. This will help you discover other related videos, but tastefully, ie, instead of plastering "Related Videos" thumbnails everywhere.

Coming soon:

- "My Videos" will only be videos you uploaded (ie, back to normal!). You will still be able to browse all videos you have a credit for, but they won't be "your" videos.
- New home page, making it easier to discover new videos and to manage your inbox. We're simplifying things.
- iPhone integration. Not really but I wish; the YouTube app on there sure does suck. "Oh, hey, I can watch 'The Evolution of Dance' again, great." Apple, what's going on? How about allying yourself with a company that complements, not contradicts, your philosophies?

As usual, post your comments and questions below for personal responses.

Until very recently, Vimeo had a big problem. Although it was easy to upload video, there was no way to organize your videos. Now, with two new features, we have solved that problem.

The first is Channels. When you create a Channel, you are creating a new video-based website. The subject of your Channel can be anything: base it around a band, a family, a style of filmmaking, or just show off your best stuff. If you want a friend to help you out, you can co-moderate with them. As moderators, only you can post to the Channel, so it's not a free-for-all like tag-based projects.

On the side of each Channel are a few boxes, which you can fully customize. Observe the personal touch that annatruus achieved by customizing the colors and language of her Channel, Photomotion.

Anyone can subscribe to your Channel, so when you post a new video, it will appear in their Inbox on the home page. dalas made a tour of Channels; take a watch!



You can find new Channels here, or by clicking on the box in the upper-right corner of the Vimeo homepage.

The other new feature is Albums, which launched yesterday. An Album is simply a group of your videos. For example, I made one for my best lip dubbing videos. Like Channels, a video can be added to an Album from the video's page, or when you upload. Watch the video below for a tour!



If you would like to know what we're working on next, it's a new home page (one that shows you videos right away, like the old v4 homepage), a fix for the "My Videos" issue (finally), and a new video page. We have smaller projects underway, as well, but these are the most-demanded changes.

We hate it when Vimeo doesn't work correctly. So last week here at Vimeo was the much needed "Bug Week". Team Vimeo worked overtime to make sure we address and fix the little pesky annoyances that have plagued Vimeo for a while, and we're happy to announce a supreme victory over many of those evil Buggers. Although there are really too many fixes to list here, I will just address a few of the major ones, as well as a few new features we implemented last week.

BUGS

*Lots of back-end work to improve the speed at which you view Vimeo... prepare for ludicrous speed!
*Subscriptions have been overhauled and you should no longer receive duplicate videos or insane ordering in your inbox. You never get duplicate letters from people in the mail, so why should you get duplicate Videos?!
*Thumbnails have been fixed and should always show up when you load a page.
*Tags should now display accurate counts. Now you can see how many "mint" tags 3d60 has bestowed upon users' videos.
*Play stats should no longer fluctuate from day to day. We like accuracy, and we know you do too.
*'Likes' are now ordered by date liked, rather than clip upload date. Here you go Posalootly!
*You should no longer see the dreaded "Stream not found" message when trying to play a video.

Fun New Features

*My personal favorite new feature is what we're calling Timeline Jumping. When you write a specific time in the comments of a Video, that time (eg 1:09) links you to that specific moment in the Video when you click on it. Remember, the video must load first for it to work. Try it! Its awesome....
*Users can now delete contacts straight from their contact page by clicking on the red X next to the contact. No more need to go to their profile page to do it.
*The top Navigation bars now display the counts of how many clips, contacts, and likes you have.

Of course its hard to catch all the bugs, so if you find any, let us know in the BUGS forum. Enjoy the fixes and new features and stay tuned for some exciting new BIG features that we plan on launching very soon!

A much-requested feature has returned. You will find the password option in the same area as the rest of the privacy settings.

Our designers and engineers completed a beautiful new project today: the Widget page at

vimeo.com/widget

You have to see the Hubnut. You embed it in MySpace or your blog, just like any other video.

But when the first video ends, the next one begins! And you can click to jump forwards and backwards. It's like watching TV in the future, but a realistically creative future, not a bogus Jetsons-style space age makeover.

If you want to discuss the Widget page or the Hubnut, I created a forum topic for you.

By the way, it's called Hubnut.

Open only to people who hate their jobs. Make a video of yourself demonstrating why your job is an insult to your intelligence and a squandering of your abilities. We teamed up with your ego to bring out some incredible prizes. Everyone whose job ends as a result of this contest will receive the self-dignity which comes from saying "I won't take this anymore", as well as a phone call from me reassuring you that everything will be ok. See Adam Holwerda's video for inspiration.

Team Vimeo has been paying close attention to every bit of user feedback we get. We realize the site isn't perfect, but we're intent on moving *towards* perfection, and your feedback is a crucial part of that process.

Part of being responsible developers is taking in all user feedback, taking a deep breath, and acting upon those suggestions when the time is right. We can't just tackle every problem that pops up like Whac-A-Mole. If we did, the site would devolve into a sprawling, unmanageable blob of conflicting interests and hastily built hacks. So if you have a brilliant suggestion in the forums and we say, "good idea", you should not be offended if two months elapse before we implement it.

So, to the point of this post. Our current project is what we're calling v5.1. It's dozens of small improvements and bug fixes based on your feedback from the forums, as well as our own ideas. A lot of you have reported that the current site feels "not quite right" and we're on the same page. I think v5.1 will address the underlying problems that create those feelings. Unlike v5, though, it won't be a monolithic release: we'll push out the changes throughout each day as we finish them. When we're totally done with v5.1, we'll start working on some new features that I am VERY excited about; we just have to be patient because building new stuff on top of a shaky foundation is a bad idea.

When we launched v5, we failed to get all the Stats features taken care of. Honestly, I think we sort of lost interest in keeping track of them -- at least, that's how I felt, because I was focused on watching videos and testing the site. But after uploading a few new videos that I am proud of, I can now say that I miss the thrill of watching my number of Views climb. I don't pursue "Views" directly, nor at any cost. I frown upon the moronic behavior of urging strangers CHECK OUT MY VIDS. Vimeo is well-organized; you generally don't see videos unless you're searching them out, or have asked for them in some way (for example, by subscribing to all videos your friend Likes). So a View on Vimeo is usually well-earned, and is something to be proud of. After releasing something you're proud of, it's nice to know what sort of impact it's having.

The first clarification: a few Stats features are missing. The first is on the Video page, where you should see a breakdown, by day, for that video, of how many Views it had and which referring URLs have sent traffic to it. We hope to have this fixed no later than the beginning of next week. The second is on the Home page, where, when logged-in, you should see stats for your videos from the past few days. We aim to have that restored by the end of next week.

The second clarification is that the numbers of Views have not been increasing for the past few days. All that data is stored safely in our logs, but there was a "clog" in processing those logs. We are currently unclogging it and all up-to-date stats should be restored by the end of the day today. I'm especially eager to see data on my own videos. Well, not especially - only. Thanks to Tommy Smith and James Boyk for bringing this to my attention. Also, we're building better tools for monitoring the conditions that cause the clog.

A third clarification is that a View is now counted by someone actually hitting Play on your video, whether on Vimeo.com or embedded in another website. Previously, a View was the number of times someone loaded your video page, and did not include embeds. In my opinion, this is a huge improvement because now Views have more meaning. This should be bad news for anyone who pursues high numbers of Views as its own goal. I'm not sure that many, if any, of those people are Vimeo users.

A final issue that doesn't have to do with Stats: "Your subscriptions" in the Inbox on the Home page was not updating properly; many videos which should have appeared there did not. We fixed it this morning after I noticed complaints in the forums.

As usual, I will read all and respond to some of the comments below.