Youtube vs. Vimeo

I'll be honest, I usually spend my time watching videos on Youtube. It's really the only video site that I use on a daily basis. On the other hand, I've never really heard of Vimeo before, maybe because it's not as popular as Youtube. After reading the four articles, I would definitely say that Vimeo is better than Youtube, but both video streaming sites do have their pros and cons.

Youtube is known for being the largest and most popular video hosting site out there. Hundreds of thousands of people log on and watch videos on Youtube daily. This leads to my first pro: popularity.
Youtube is a great way to basically market yourself or your business. More people are likely to view your videos since the company is owned by Google. According to the article, "YouTube Vs. Vimeo: Which Video Site Is Best for Business?" by Don Powers, Youtube videos are indexed in the Google search engine which increases your chances of your video being seen.
Another pro is that for Youtube, getting an account is very simple and free. Everyone likes free things, right? The things that I like about the Youtube account layout is that each section is categorized and shows all your videos that you've uploaded and/or watched. It's a good feature when you don't want to go through the search bar and try to find all the videos that you uploaded or viewed within a certain time frame.

Now for the cons. As said in most of the articles, the Youtube player can get very ugly at times. It's really annoying when the little boxes come up on the video where people want you to click on other links. Another con is the advertisements. I understand that the site has to make money someway, but the ads can be annoying. It doesn't happen all the time with videos, but for some of the ads you can't skip them which is a negative. Now I'm noticing that the ads are a little bit longer that usual, especially watching longer videos or episodes of a show. It reminds me of the commercials on television.

Moving on to Vimeo. I think that Vimeo is better than Youtube. For one, the video quality is excellent. It doesn't look grainy, like how some Youtube videos look on the screen. The other feature that I like is that the bottom bar disappears after a couple of seconds. It's less distracting than Youtube, where there are a bunch of little buttons that you want to click on.. The last pro is that more viewers are likely to watch your videos because it's a smaller community. It's better to have viewers who actually stay and watch your videos, than watching a video by a user and forgetting them all together.

For the cons of Vimeo, I would say the small community. It would be harder to make your videos get more exposure, making it especially harder for businesses to get exposure to their company. Another con is the upgrade price. If you want to upgrade your account, it's $59.95 a year. To me, that seems way too expensive , even though the quality of the videos are really good.

All in all, I think that Vimeo is better in terms of quality and a smaller community. But, if you want your videos to get more exposure, I would choose Youtube. As I said earlier, both video sites have their pros and cons.