I think regardless of how the site grows there will always be a great community. People are very familiar with certain users and I can't imagine that will stop just because more people use the site. It may be saturated a bit, but thats inevitable and could bring in some really great people, as it does on a regular basis now!

As for the idea of a dominant ideology... I think v5 shows us that Vimeo is constantly changing. And within these changes the ideology inevitably morphs as well. Although I would say a major ideology will always be "A fun, safe place to share videos with your friends and family", i also find the community aspect of Vimeo to be its most cherished trait.

I like this thread, a lot. I think, in part, the dominant ideology here is in contradistinction to the mess and mass of other video sharing sites. Vimeo is what it is because its NOT like those other sites. At the same time, the new interface, coupled with the subscription technologies, really orients the userbase towards one another. Its like you've positioned Vimeo to be introspective... if thats even possible.

"Vimeo: not your daddy's video site"
"Vimeo: like a belly button for your eye"

Throw back the curtains of your life

Good people before good videos.

i eat shit all day... vimeo is my breath mint

I think I have a good idea of our ideology. It may be personal opinion, but I think it is shared by many.

I'd say, original content at all costs. This site is populated by extremely creative people, that have found this place as a refreshing alternative to tv show/commerical/movie trailer/ect... laden video sites.

Here we push the creative bill on one another for making new content that can be enjoyed by all. Going so far as to join in on each others videos for collaborations, going out and meeting other Vimeo users in real life, having a good time.

I'd also add, this is a very friendly community. Many members, including myself, strive to keep this place a nice place for long time members and new alike. I've noticed when you get the occasional anti-social bad apple, they are quickly ignored.

So I'd say, our ideology would be...

A Creative, Original Environment for Friendly People.

Kind of long for a bumper sticker, but that is how I view it.

I preface this: I'm drunk.

That being said-- Vimeo's ideology seems to be progress with the people. Meaning the progress that takes place here is because of the people that use it, not nessicarily because ya'll want to make the myspace moves and capotolize out our souls or anything.

It seems homey here.

Vimeo is accepting applications from all creative minds.

Getting back in touch with humanity through innovation and personal creative outlets.

Making the internet (impersonal) family (personal).

Vimeo is the home that you come back to after 2 semesters of college.
Vimeo is the bed you get into after a vacation.
Vimeo is the poughkeepsie to youtube's manhattan.

now I will eat in an attempt to prevent a hangover.

Creativity at any cost

Vimeo is the Farmer's Market where everybody knows your name.

The video site for cool kids.

Although that's more of a slogan than an ideology.

Vimeo is delectably enriching!

In the community I live - it's called "Minnesota Nice."

It's a place where even though we all know the world is taking a nosedive, we keep our heads above the _ _ _ _ and focus on the good in people. And rather than relishing in people's misery we cling to cheering eachother on.
Sign on the Vimeo door should say:
Jag Offs NOT WELCOME! If you can play well with others- come on in!

But I sure like the one about Vimeo being a breathmint! That was classic.

OK i may be new but i got an idea for a slogan for the vimeo Ideology...

vimeoology: watching your life one video at a time

or

vimeoology: showing the world what your up to.

or

vimeoology: Everyday videos for everyday people.

or

vimeoology: the art of showing the world a video of your life.

"Vimeo killed the television star!"

Seriously. I have *no* real desire to watch much television since becoming involved in creating personal content. Its like TV could simply be another person on vimeo, but with vimeo you aren't pandering (as an individual) to ad revenues or network management decisions.

The reality shows and other schlock that passes for entertainment is like looking at a bad self portrait of larger corporate interests.

Ideologies are dead.

I like all the community, creativity and friendliness... but I also really like the glimpse of other peoples realities, which is like travelling, and chatting with new people and discovering new viewpoints. Doing this visually is very powerful and enticing.

The idea that large human collectivities have "a" dominant ideology is very interesting and is something that scholars debate a lot--it was a point Marx insisted on, too. And it has been a good explanation in some cases historically. But I tend to agree with those who say that the extent to which any large organization has a dominant ideology versus a few predominant ones is something that varies, often based on the homogeneity of the community and its history. Homogeneous organizations like the FBI under Hoover or, say, a quilting club in rural Iowa in the 30s, can easily be said to have one dominant ideology. But heterogeneous collectivities like "America" clearly have several dominant ideologies (often competing) in our shared political culture.

I don't mean to get off topic and go all scholarly with this; it does relate to some questions facing Vimeo related to the one Jake raises: Is this a place with one or several dominant ideologies, and will that change? Is it a relatively homogeneous community? Is it becoming less so and therefore any single dominant ideology today is "threatened" by other competing ones that will emerge with greater diversity of the membership (and by "diversity" I mean on all sorts of dimensions). And would losing a dominant ideology have positive consequences or just negative ones?

All that being said, I'd put my two cents in for including something like "civility" in the statement of the core Vimeology. That seems an essential part of what makes this a nice place to hang.

it takes a village to make a video, ;)

Real People

Vimeo: Watch out or you'll start referring to us as your friends.

As a researcher in organization science I find your question especially interesting.

First, I would answer that this is a really tough question, and I would be skeptical towards any answer that is short and simple and claims to have found the whole truth. Not only is there the question whether there is such a thing as "the" dominant ideology (which mimoody already addressed), but also it is usually very difficult to determine the ideology of an organization that you belong to. What makes this difficult for us is that we tend to describe our organizations the way we want them to be, and this may cause great differences in our description versus that of an independent outsider.

Yet I still think it is worth the time thinking about this. Here's what I would say about vimeo's ideology/ies:

I would agree with ryan brown on the term "contradistinction". For vimewegians, it seems to be very important to distance themselves from other video sites, especially youtube.

"Flat hierarchies" comes to mind, since the staff is just as much engaged in making and sharing videos as the users. Although hierarchies are visible (e.g. "staff" tag), there is little "distance" between the staff and the users.

"Connecting and co-operating" seems of high importance to the users as well as the staff. This is even more so with v5, where videos are "owned" by all the people that have taken part in them (as opposed to the person that uploaded them).

Co-operation of course wouldn't work without the "friendliness". Almost no unfriendly comments are seen on all of vimeo. I assume that if someone doesn't like a video, he/she simply ignores it.

Last, I would point out that there is a fairly high degree of "self-reflexiveness". Your question, Jake, is the best proof for this. Your wondering what being on vimeo is like, and all the responses show that people here also think a lot about what they do.

Okay, I guess I didn't really talk about vimeo's ideology, but rather vimeo's culture, but I hope my perspective helps.

Jakob, I would be interested in what you make of this (mine and all the other responses).

What is the dominant ideology at vimeo if there is one?
The world can be a bad place. Vimeo is a good place to be. It's better to be kind.

I've already written about what vimeo is to me the vimeo forum history. I'll write my current notes now. Read them and let them soak but don't rinse.

I'm going to focus on comments because without user interaction through forums/comments, vimeo would be a file server.

People have various ways to escape or embrace reality. For me vimeo is a little of both. Vimeo is a warm vacation escape from reality. It's also a welcoming place to play, create, share, uplift and be uplifted. For some, the opposite could be true but for me this is what vimeo is.

I could be the angriest most negative person in the world (hahaha) but on vimeo I'm a part of a positive community and I like to think I make a difference in the community so I keep coming back. My perception could be totally wrong but I feel good at vimeo.

Why vimeo is nicer?
How does one behave in a chat room? If some users shift conversation from car maintenance to having hot talk, what do you do? Do you stay on topic? Do you feel your comments appreciated? If you were a contributor whose comments were appreciated, you'd probably keep going back.

What's the point in commenting anyway? Do your comments really mean anything in real life? Will they cure cancer? Stop unnecessary war? Relieve the thirsting and starving homeless? Will your comment nurture a child and help him to grow? Will your thoughts make someone happy?

People behave as they wish. Often people conform to and behave according to the rules of the group they are in. It only takes one comment to change the feel of a thread. How do you use your comments?

People who find the time to enjoy other's creativity and contribute their own talents and content are true vimeowegians. Anyone can be one. This is the philosophy of vimeo to me.

Comfy, Communal Creativity and Comraderie

The emphasis on "civility", "friendliness" and "positivity" by previous posters reminded me of Cardinal Newman on "The Definition of a Gentleman", which I think well describes all of the people I have met here (of either sex of course):

"... it is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.... The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast - all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make every one at his ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring."

To sum up Vimeo in a phrase?

"Open your eyes"

I'd say vimeo is SO good, that, well...there's no way it can be sustainable :)

So I'd say the dominant ideology is, "Eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die."

"Where People Will Send You Bread - Does YOUR Video Site Do That?"

Prohibitively long, to be sure, but also prohibitively AWESOME.

I can feel that there is a comunity here, but i use Vimeo because of the greater quality of the video conversion. But i feel pressure to upload my videos to Youtube also, for the greater audience that they can get there.

People being real...at all costs.

Micro-media for a macro-community

it's like snowboarding and wintersports. wintersports = video-sharing. youtube would be skiing. then snowboarding = vimeo (i know, i know, vimeo was first:)) comes along. it's still a wintersport, but somehow it's different. so it gives you this community feeling. next thing you know the idiot at uni you happen to sit next to wears burton clothes and tell's you how totally rad snowboarding in verbier is. at the end even the 40 year old ski-bunny in her white single-piece-skidress snowboards. then freestyle skiing pops up and the hippsters move along and finally you get your peace back. yep, that's what happens to communities. some of course dont even get that far, like snowblades or big-foot ski's ... let's see how vimeo ends up.

man, i sure have nothing to do tonight. blah.

Not snow boarders..... skateborders

They continued in obscurity and indiference and still through the many years it developed in to an amazing form of physical art, driven by need and necscity ( god forgive my bad spalling ) spell checker any where ?...The use of the " street " as a common playground of infinate possibillites to me is the measure of it's and this sites continued renued success. That all the stuff around us and everybody in it, is fascinating and potentially inspiering.

I come here to play, I come here to see you all play and your play inspires me to greater feats of playing and involvement of the outside world in our playing.

Play is the ideology, if I was to be less succinct I would say OBEY PLAY one of my stencils ( street interactive play )
Vimeo does make me feel weird tho, the constant praise and appreciation of comments to the videos makes me feel uneasy/queasy.

More because in this self regulating and nurturing enviroment, I am a stranger. I can't tell the division between child and adult...cos there is none, because play is the currency of this site and play has no boundries has no wrong or right is genderless and hopefull. And as an adult I'm begining to learn that all over again and appreciate and this is the crux, trust the responses to my play.

Adult and child play is essential, through it we exercise demons, heal one another and love each other for what we are. Because we recongnise this playgrond we are all in, we fend off the bullies we ward away the prinicpals that would regulate and constrict us. To further protect and enhance the saftey of this site.

That is what this site repesents to me, in this moment of extreme tiredness and not sleeping.

I know fully well, that most if not all of you are switched on polticaly astute and maybe highly active in your own ideoligies and pursuits as I am. We all carry and hold that adult responsibillity.

But here our frames are lighter our spirits are lifted and our/ my need to inform and lobby is negated, its implicit in the overall message of our freedom to and in our play.

Of course the major ideoligy we are all part of is that we are free to do this, take part, join in, film and upload because of our wealth and econmic standing allows free time or skills to do so.

VIMEO OBEY PLAY

that is one hell of a good t shirt idea for my affluent middle class self rigfhteous arse to wear.... will make one and show you... see you in the playgrond