By Gavin Boyle
Vimeo wants to create the next revolution in online content creation, allowing creators to create their own streaming websites rather than relying solely on social media platforms to share their work.
“Vimeo is proud to serve the professional creator,” said Vimeo CEO Philip Moyer. “With our new Vimeo Streaming release, we are giving creators more ways to connect with and gain a deeper understanding of their audiences, more ways to monetize their content, and higher grade security.”
“Vimeo is also breaking down language barriers for creators with our new AI services. We believe creators should be in control of their work and how they are paid; so we’re taking the technologies that are usually afforded by the biggest platforms and putting it in the hands of our customers, at a fraction of the cost,” Moyer continued.
Rather than being at the whim of both the algorithms and the monetization policies of social media platforms, Vimeo Streaming would allow users to create their own platform and determine how they would monetize it.
Though the tool launched for the public on April 4, select creators have been using the tools for nearly three years, generating more than $1 billion in revenue over that time, per Kidscreen. The largest creator to use Vimeo Streaming to create its own platform is Dropout, a comedy group that began on YouTube and has since migrated a sizable audience onto their own platform.
“Vimeo Streaming allows us to concentrate on our core competence — producing content — and leave the technical aspects to Vimeo,” said Dropout CEO Sam Reich. “Our subscription business is far and away our biggest revenue driver, and Vimeo’s comprehensive suite of tools means we’re delivering it to our audiences stylishly and reliably.”
Vimeo’s play to overhaul the creator industry comes as content creators have been finding different ways to generate revenue for years. While social media sites offer a cut of the ad revenue generated by creators, most of the time, this revenue is not sustainable. For that reason, many content creators have to rely on other businesses to support their lifestyle and videos.
For some, this means opening up a Patreon and allowing their fans to pay a monthly amount to support their content, while for others, this means selling merchandise like T-shirts. Many creators also rely on sponsors to subsidize their income, while some larger creators form larger businesses like a candy or coffee business.
Vimeo Streaming would help solve the monetization issue by allowing creators to choose how they monetize their content, but creators would still rely on other social media platforms to grow their brand and expand their fanbase in the first place.
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