An Interview with Jakob Lodwick about Vimeo.  By Nick Gray.

1. Vimeo is currently in 'closed beta.' What is on your to-do list before a public trial?

Here is my current priority list: Allow people to comment on clips. Present tags in a more interesting and useful way. Create more informative guides for using the site and dealing with video. Build RSS feeds into every page possible. Increase integration with Flickr, del.icio.us, and other open-ended sites.

Once all those things are accomplished, I'll feel comfortable opening it up, though the whole system will be invite-based, and people will earn invites based on how much they use the site. I hope to cultivate a sense of responsibility so that when Tom invites Mary, he feels a need to teach her how to effectively use the site.

I don't know too much about Flickr's architecture, so it's hard for me to comment on their growing pains. I think a consequence of explosive popularity is an awkward phase that probably has a lot in common with a human's puberty. When you first build a website, you're not always thinking about how it will run when there are hundreds of thousands of people using it every day. You're thinking, "How can I get this thing off the ground?".

I'm not sure how I will deal with Vimeo's growth if it becomes explosively popular (which, honestly, is not something I'm counting on). Fortunately, the programming and database loads are pretty light, so the real concern is pure bandwidth. But since we already have tons of bandwidth and storage space with CollegeHumor, I don't think we have much to worry about.

I'm not partial to Apple or Microsoft; if there were a good, open video standard that everyone could use, I'd jump right on it. But there's not, so right now I'm using Quicktime instead of any other format for three simple reasons: 1) A lot of people can play Quicktime files in their browsers, 2) Quicktime has decent integration of the SMIL technology, which Vimeo relies upon, 2) Quicktime Pro is an easy way to encode video.

I can't guarantee that Vimeo will be up forever, but I do promise I won't "disappear" with your clips if we shut down, if we ever *do* shut down. I have no idea why or when that would happen, though.

You'll soon be able to save Automatic Movies to your desktop, yes. I should probably mention that part of the "fun" of Automatic Movies is that, theoretically, they are different every time you watch them. For example, if you decide to watch an Automatic Movie about NYC, it will be different in a month because new NYC clips will have been added to the system.

That's a good idea. Maybe if people start tagging clips as "welcome to vimeo", we could put them on the home page. Why don't you start this trend, Nick, just as you started the "5 second club" ?   (Editors note: First!)

If you want the Vimeo community to find and watch your clips, it's important to tag them. Tags are a way of translating the language of video into a written language that you can understand. We don't yet have the technology to recognize that a clip involves "Nick Gray", or was shot in "India", or involves "walking", but if we tag our clips as such, we and other Vimeo users will be able to find them.

Beyond that, users of *other* sites will be able to find them, using RSS or an eventually open API or whatever. Eventually.

I'd rather not specualte about new features too much, because my ideas are always changing. But I will tell you a goal of mine: To teach Vimeo to make Automatic Movies that are better than freshmen film school projects. I guess it's sort of a cinematic Turing test.

Worst case: nobody likes Vimeo and it doesn't catch on. Best case: people fall in love with it.

Vimeo shares and makes automatic movies.