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Jakob Lodwick – Vimeo Founder Leaves; What’s Next for Vimeo and Lodwick? I Know!
It appears that Jakob Lodwick has left Vimeo. Valleywag believes he was fired, some say he quit. Who cares why. It’s not like his next startup is going to do a background check. Liz says that Jakob remains an investor in the company.
The real question is what happens to Vimeo and Jakob now. Let’s take Jakob first. My bet is that he appears on the payroll of Tumblr within ten days. A secondary option is some new startup based on video combined with love lessons with his girlfriend Julia Allison.
Vimeo is another story. In my opinion, Jakob was the "icon" of that site and depending on whether he still participates in the community will determine where the site goes. I compared Viddler and Vimeo recently and believe both sites have great potential in front of them. Both rely on their communities for growth and virality and with Jakob gone, those characteristics take a hit. Will people still lip dub now that he is gone? Sure, but he seemed to lead that charge on the site. Will the community fall apart without him? Not sure, but it might be the right time for another player to make an offer to the Vimeo community.
When I think about joining a startup, Vimeo would be one I would seriously consider as the community is strong and their technology is moving forward past the current leaders.
I don’t know, I’m not sure I agree that Vimeo surpassing other sites in terms of technology. I’ve tried it, it was slow, there were no interesting tools, nothing to really personalize your page, etc., but I don’t think any of the video sites are really that great right now either so it doesn’t really mattter. Video is still very early – it’s a long way away from where it’s headed, making money is very hard and will stay that way. Sites setting up syndication deals are smart, but it’s going to be a long, cold year before any of them really start finding what works and more importantly, making money. Half of the existing sites will probably fail.
I think Vimeo benefitted from having such a loud and unusual spokesperson, but they’re the ones who see the numbers. I don’t think either parties involved really “need” eachother.
Too bad for him I guess. When reading the echo from blogs, I don’t understand all the hate people have for Jakob Lodwick, bottom line is, Vimeo is a great service, he pushed it to popularity.
He should have probably known that when you get bought by a giant as media company, it gets harder to do cool shit, and of course it’s harder to actually get away with it. ;)