The IdeaLists

Blake Whitman has seen Vimeo's user numbers soar into the millions since its 2004 conception. The key to keeping up quality and turning down the noise, he explains, is nurturing strong community values and editorial voice. Vimeo’s big investment to keep its network encouraged and engaged has paid off: By featuring emerging forms of filmmaking and actively connecting with creators, Vimeo’s staff has managed to become not just platform keepers, but tastemakers. As a result, filmmakers flock to a place where they can share inspiration, learn and network. And, of course, where their videos look good.

You have a noncommercial policy that greatly differentiates you from YouTube. How does Vimeo’s philosophy stray away from the aggregate model?

Our rule from day one was that you could only upload stuff that you create yourself. It was something that we spent a ton of time and effort maintaining. Not only do we want that content to be from the original creator, but also it helps to foster communication and conversation about it. When you comment on a film, you’re actually talking to the person who created it. We want that conversation to be two ways.

Our platform is a place to share the work that you create, so if you create commercials and you’re good at it, we want Vimeo to be a place for you to share that work. We have a noncommercial policy, but it comes down to intent. If you’re a commercial director and you upload a commercial for Ford, the intent is to show the work. If you’re Ford and you’re uploading a commercial for Ford, then the intent there is to sell cars. If you’re just using Vimeo to offload your hosting costs, then we kick you off.

How did you go about nurturing this active engagement? It seems like you invest in personal efforts instead of relying on automation.

Our community team is made up of close to 10 people now, which is a lot considering we’re a staff of 40. It’s a big part of what we consider important to our business. It’s really impossible for a site to instill community after it’s already become huge. You can’t do it. We were lucky to have set it up that way from the beginning.

How do you keep your eye on new talent and interesting filmmaking when you’ve got millions of users?

I watch dozens of videos a day. That’s probably one of the best parts of my job. Overseeing the editorial side. It has a lot to do with making connections with these creators and meeting with them as much as possible. We try to find the pulse of new artistic and creative directions that have been popping up in the last two years —featuring them and exposing people to new forms of art. We have countless stories of people making their career by uploading work that we feature on Vimeo's editorial pages.

Do you have a way to comb through all this?

We have a few algorithms to find, not necessarily what’s popular, but what the community finds interesting. We don’t have any ‘Top 10’ lists or ‘Most Played,’ or anything like that. We’re really not about what’s popular based off of plays; we’re way more into what’s popular based on quality and likes. The biggest way is just making contacts with creators who we know and respect. We also monitor a lot of other blogs that pick up music videos and art blogs and make sure we catch the stuff outside people are paying attention to.

What do you see changing in the way people approach short film as a product of the web?

Within the short film genre, you’ll see more experimental work, things that are done a little bit differently than the classical short film storytelling model. Even in film festivals this is changing radically now because there is such a high access to creative inspiration. People are tending to go out on crazy limbs, which is a byproduct of what’s happening on platforms like Vimeo. We’re exposed to so many forms of creativity that people are influenced rapidly in all different directions. Essentially millions of people can watch anything at any given time.

What was the content people uploaded back in the day when you guys got started as opposed to what you see now?

When you look at the oldest videos, they’re just stupid videos of your everyday life, with someone with a point-and-shoot on the bus catching something funny, editing something together barebones. That was when everyone was beginning to experiment with online video. Not everyone was a ‘filmmaker’ like we are now, you know? The style and content back then was very personal.

So how about this idea that ‘everyone’ is becoming a filmmaker? What’s happened? Access to tools?

It’s the access to relatively cheap technology that allows you to create videos and content that was completely inaccessible even 10 years ago. When every computer has an editing program, and every phone has a camera, you have the tools to create stunning video. The second thing is the access to free education. You can go pretty much anywhere online and find free tutorials, tons of inspirational videos, and tons of interviews with amazing artists. That combined with cheap technology and the platform to share it is really all you need to become a filmmaker. And that’s a very, very new thing. That’s why were seeing such an explosion of creativity in the last three years. We see things being made by 15 year olds that someone in film school 10 years ago would be hard pressed to make.

So where does it all go from here?

I love this question – I’m going to answer it so vaguely. Eventually we’re going to build a more diverse set of tools for people, everyone from professionals to mothers and fathers who are shooting video of their kids. We already have those tools, but we’re going to really focus them. Also, Vimeo has always been about the platform abilities, but soon it will be about a destination for viewing. We’re going to provide a much better, more consistent platform for that. We’re sitting on such an incredible community of content and creativity. We want to bring it to light in a much more overt way than we do now.