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Roku Future of TV Vimeo

Vimeo expands reach with Roku partnership

By Benjamin Lichtman, Contributor

March 31, 2016 | 3 min read

Vimeo recently announced that consumers can purchase and rent films and series directly from their Vimeo channel through their Roku devices. The move now provides creators with an enormous outlet for their videos, expanding the potential marketplace by millions. The video giant has a substantial collection of 30,000 titles and counting.

The Drum previously reported on changes over at YouTube, as it introduced Red, and now Vimeo has major plans of its own. The two websites are certainly different; YouTube is known more for sheer quantity while Vimeo is known more for its more professional videos, but they are also competitors and both see the opportunities in the premium OTT space.

As Vimeo explained, partnering with Roku made logical sense. “Roku is one of the leading connected TV platforms and the new transaction support will provide video creators selling in our VOD marketplace with an opportunity to sell their videos directly to millions of potential viewers worldwide on TV for the first time,” Vimeo VP of Product VP of Product, Christophe Gillet told Found Remote.

And now the question arises as to what may come next. Right now, the site says it is focused on discoverability. As Gillet explained: “We have an aggressive roadmap — in the first quarter alone we added new Chromecast support to our Android app, completely rebuilt our iOS app, along with new Samsung and Panasonic integrations...We see TV apps as an incredible way to bring new and more immersive ways of discovering and viewing the best of Vimeo.”

For consumers, the move simply adds more choice, which is never a bad thing. And for Roku users, which is an ever-growing number, it’s a terrific addition to a terrific device.

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