I’ve heard it said that YouTube is the world’s #2 search engine. This alone is cause for pause. But then I saw two posts within a few hours of each other.

Bob Lefsetz posted to “forget Vimeo” and that “YouTube wins.” I’ll admit it. I like the clean interface of vimeo and the fact that the community tends to be supportive. But there is a lot to be said about being present where the audience is also present. In this case, mass is on YouTube.

Next, I saw that John Saddington deleted his entire library of videos on Vimeo (500+). No small course of action. If you’ve built up that much content and let it go, it’s not without reason.

My status as of this writing is that I have several portfolio pieces hosted on Vimeo. And although I’ve created a YouTube channel, it’s entirely void of any uploads. My experience with the two platforms has given me this impression:

Vimeo: clean, better picture quality, less reliable playback, slower, more community, preferred by artists and those in the design and video fields.

YouTube: where the mass population is, faster playback, more reliable, annoying when ads are present, the place where it is assumed any online video can be found.

If you are wanting your work to be widely seen, YouTube makes sense. But that isn’t everyone’s goal. Vimeo offers great features for password protected videos and videos that are intended for only a specific site and a more specific audience.

You could also choose to host your videos on both platforms, and many do. For the time being, I’m seriously giving YouTube another look.