A New Vimeo

You know what? Amongst the iPhone hype and Pownce invite frenzy, I forget to make my post about the brand new Vimeo.
I’ll start off with my beta experience. I got test the beta while it was in private sandbox mode for a few weeks. Let me just say that I think Vimeo handled beta better than almost any other site I’ve seen on the web. They put the beta on a different database, so no one had to worry about affecting their normal vimeo account, they gave a checklists of things to try, and gave incentives for bug reporting(namely a free Macbook to the best bug reporter.) If there’s a better way to get folks to rail against your site and work out the kinks, I haven’t seen it. And now that the site has made it’s way out of beta, I’d say the new Vimeo is proof that the beta testing was pretty successful.
First of all, the design is fantastic. Little things especially, such as the login screen. But overall, Vimeo has managed to keep the interface as simple as possible with all the features they offer, and keep it beautiful with large text and a great color palette. They’ve also managed to implement ajax in a way that isn’t annoying or unnecessary, but actually adds to usable, for scrolling through videos, or moving modules around.
And of course, the best part of Vimeo is still intact,. What’s the best part? The personality! It’s still as personal as ever and the staff continue to put out great videos, that just make you wish you could work their too. If you’d like to see what I mean, head over to JakeAndAmir.com to see some great staff created vimeos.