Saturday, March 29th, 2008...10:22 am
Engage People: Add Video to Your Ministry Website Using Vimeo
Vimeo is a video sharing website similar to YouTube, but it offers a MUCH better experience. Not only does Vimeo have a better design and layout than YouTube but it is cleaner and doesn’t excessively push negative content to every page.
Why Vimeo is better than YouTube:
- Cleaner, Safer and more family friendly*
- Much more User-Friendly
- Clicking embedded videos doesn’t take you to Vimeo.com (example in video above)
- Ability to customize the size, look and color of embedded videos
- Upload video files up to 500 megabytes (instead of 100)
- Full screen option is available for embedded videos too (example in video above)
*Though Vimeo is cleaner than other video sharing sites they do not have strict rules to enforce that it will stay this way. Use at own risk.
2 Simple Steps for Embedding a Video in Your Site
Step #1 Copy the Embed Code
Click the button on your video that says “Embed” and copy the code by either right clicking and selecting copy or highlighting it and pressing CTRL+C. 
Step #2 Paste the Code into your Blog or Website
Write a new post or edit a page and look for a button that says “Edit HTML” or “View HTML” or “Code”. Once you have selected one of these options simply paste the code by either right clicking and selecting paste or press CTRL+V on your keyboard.
Dumb Question: Why Is Video Important?
Video has become an integral part of the web and something that ministries, churches and missions should absolutely be looking at for communications. Video gives life and interactivity to a website or blog and reaches a larger number of people who simply don’t read much. The apostle Paul used the best methods available for communicating the Gospel, visiting people and writing letters.
Aaron Marshall is a technology strategist, social entrepreneur and newbie kitesurfer. He founded 
Writer. Performer. Social Media Nut. Quilter. 
11 Comments
March 29th, 2008 at 11:22 am
I’m so glad you switched to Vimeo. The video looks so much better. Something you forgot is that it supports HD. LifeChurch.tv has a ton of their content on Vimeo that is in HD and free for anyone to view. http://vimeo.com/lifechurchtv
It’s pretty cool. Thanks for spreading Vimeo around. Hopefully it will engage more people on lots of church websites.
March 29th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Great work again, Aaron. I believe a common misconception for many people is YouTube “is” web video. Much like during the dial-up days when people thought AOL was the Internet.
There are many video sites and you did a very good job showcasing Vimeo’s great features. Great work.
April 4th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Great site man. Just found it and subscribed. I love your simple overviews of stuff like Twitter and RSS.
I’ve been using Vimeo for months now and I LOVE them for exactly the reasons you listed in your video. I’m hoping they’ll give users the options to embed HD video on their own sites rather than only being able to view it there. But that’s a small thing compared to how awesome their service is.
Look forward to reading more in the future.
Brad Ruggles
http://www.bradruggles.com
April 7th, 2008 at 11:57 am
We’re looking for a web video player for our church web site. I found 2. Wimpy Rave (http://wimpyplayer.com) looks old and clunky. Wired Churches Media Player (http://www.wiredchurches.com/s.nl/it.A/id.2159/.f) was the other… but it’s way too expensive ($199/month).
Have you seen any? Ideally, I’d like to find something that will automatically pull from a podcast xml file to populate the video player.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I am not sure off the top of my head. I will ask around, and see what comes up.
You could always save money and embed a Vimeo video…
April 8th, 2008 at 8:33 am
I just found your blog through facebook of all places. Love it! I’m a Children’s Pastor who’s passionate about using the web and social networks to increase effectiveness. So many great tools out there… so many more to come!
April 20th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Hi Aaron,
Jason Marshall here. I chatted with you a while back. Just wanted to touch base with you. Keep up the great work. You can email me at …
Jason(at)JasonStanleyMarshall.com
Thanks!
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:59 am
Is it illegal to download youtube clips to be used for a Powerpoint presentation at church?
August 4th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
[...] There is a fantastic new service that makes it VERY easy to live broadcast your event through the internet. One of the particularly neat features is that it allows you to broadcast through multiple websites at once. That means you can put live streaming video in a blog, website, Facebook page or anywhere else that allows you to embed a video. [...]
August 14th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
[...] There is a fantastic new service that makes it VERY easy to live broadcast your event through the internet. One of the particularly neat features is that it allows you to broadcast through multiple websites at once. That means you can put live streaming video in a blog, website, Facebook page or anywhere else that allows you to embed a video. [...]
August 21st, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Hi, my name is Matt and I’m with a ministry called TruthCasting.com, based in the Dallas area. TruthCasting is a free ongoing service to churches to host their sermon content with no limitation in bandwidth, service or storage limitations of any kind.
Thanks for your time and God Bless!
Matt Moss
214-440-4013
http://www.TruthCasting.com
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