There is little doubt that YouTube is the video site for many people. The most popular YouTube videos have amassed billions of views.
But what if it turns out that YouTube is inaccessible? Or do you just want more options for watching videos online? What alternatives are there?
These days, video is such a big part of the online experience that there are so many options available. Here are some great alternatives to YouTube, although the "better than" is obviously up for debate.
Even if you visit YouTube regularly, Vimeo is worth adding to your regular rotation of video sites. The site was the first on the web to support HD video, and while it includes a selection of user-generated rates, its emphasis is more on high-quality content.
Among other things, Vimeo features a number of well-known movies and TV series, including E!'s The Royals, Spike TV's Blue Mountain State, and Netflix's Orange Is the New Black.
The site also has an easy-to-navigate search feature that organizes videos by category and channel. Don't know what to see? An up-to-date selection of Vimeo's staff picks can help point you in the right direction.
Metacafe is a video site that specializes in short-form video content. This includes everything from highlights of the world's best surfers, quick and to the point product reviews, and tips on how to complete a difficult level in your favorite video game.
One of Metacafe's strengths is its simplicity. Its navigation interface is fairly straightforward, with a menu bar that links to “latest,” “popular,” and “trending” videos. Those who want to take a deeper dive can click the dropdown menu on the left, which features a longer list of 16 video categories.
Originating from the Israeli company Qlipso, Veoh describes itself as an Internet television company. The site has millions of videos, most of them professionally produced.
Veoh features a wide range of television content, including full episodes and clips from shows including NCIS, Two and a Half Men, The Price Is Right and The Young and the Restless. It also has videos from classic series, like Family Ties, Melrose Place, and the original Beverly Hills 90210.
In addition to TV clips, Veoh has a wealth of music content across a wide range of genres. It also has a movies section that includes some full features as well as memorable clips from a large number of movies.
As its name suggests, The Internet Archive is a web-based library of all kinds of free content, including books, music, software, and of course movies.
Much like you might associate a physical library with research, one of the strengths of The Internet Archive's video content is its vast collection of historical content. While it also has newer content, some of its best videos are older and lesser known, as well as TV shows and movies that are often harder to find elsewhere.
Like many other sites, users can also upload videos to The Internet Archive. When uploading videos, H.264 is the common video encoding format used.
Owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, think of Crackle as a kind of online TV channel that features original shows for the web, as well as Hollywood movies and TV shows from various networks.
Some of Crackle's original content has been critically acclaimed, including the web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, starring Jerry Seinfeld. It also has a good selection of TV shows from the past, such as All in the Family, 227, Firefly, Mad About You, and News Radio.
Also, the site is good for watching old movies that you may have missed, such as Night of the Living Dead, Animal House, Paranormal Activity, and Rudy.
While many of the selections on this list include a variety of TV series or movies, Screen Junkies specializes in original content that covers TV series and movies. Most of the shows on the site are comedic in nature. For example, in Honest Trailers, comedians voice their own versions of previews for various TV shows and movies.
Another good show available on Screen Junkies is TV Fights, where self-proclaimed “TV Nerds” discuss various topics, such as “What was the worst sitcom of the 90s??”
Visitors can watch a handful of videos on Screen Junkies for free, but a full premium subscription costs $4.99 a month, or 15 months for the starting price of 12 ($59).
Many of you may only know MySpace as the mid-2000s social networking site that happened to be a precursor to Facebook. The site is still around and these days it's putting a bigger emphasis on video.
Many of the videos on MySpace are based on interviews and feature celebrities in situations where you don't always see them. For example, in the series Getting Nailed, various celebrities are interviewed while getting their nails done at a salon.
There are plenty of other similarly themed interview videos on the site, many of which feature musical acts or action sports stars. For example, there are The Pedicab interviews:Dillon Francis, The Chairlift interviews:Shaun Francis, and OK Go:Ferris wheel interviews.
The Open Video Project has been developed in the Interaction Design Laboratory in the School of Information and Science at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Library. The site is aimed at the research community, including those working with media retrieval and digital libraries.
With that in mind, most of the videos found on The Open Video Project are educational in nature. There are many videos from the NASA archives, as well as a collection of classic TV commercials and educational films dating back to the 1950s. If you're looking to investigate historical video content, give The Open Video Project a try.
Think of 9GAG as a collection of all things fun and silly:funny photos, GIFs, gameplay videos, memes, anime, and the like. In fact, the motto of the site is, "Go have fun yourself."
Most of the content is fun and frivolous. Video titles include things like "A compilation of the best commercials starring the Star Wars team," or "This high school love story will warm your heart, then break it before you know what happened."
It's the kind of thing that's hard not to click on and then spend hours browsing. Before you visit, be warned:the site contains a number of videos that are somewhat lofty and may not be safe for work.
If you're not already familiar with TED, now is the time to familiarize yourself. TED's website features more than 2,300 talks covering a wide variety of topics, including technology, business, design, science, and global issues.
Some of the talks are funny, and some are emotional. Some conversations are meant to teach you something specific. 11 Fantastic TED Talks That Explain How Your Brain Works. 11 Fantastic TED Talks That Explain How Your Brain Works. Why are we the way we are? Is there anything we can do to change the way we think or behave? These 11 absorbing TED Talks on brain science teach us to overcome our... Read More The one constant with all TED videos, though, is that you're likely to get something memorable out of each one.
The TED website is particularly helpful if you're pressed for time. Videos that appear in the menu are tagged with an easy-to-see red bar if they are less than six minutes long.
YouTube is the number one video website for several reasons, including its huge selection of videos and its partnership with Google.
Still, the video sites mentioned above are at least worth checking out, and there's no doubt that there are more of them waiting to be discovered. YouTube's comments section alone may be reason enough to look elsewhere.
Looking for more online video entertainment? So why not try one of these free movie streaming websites? Top 18 free movie streaming sites. Top 18 free movie streaming sites. If you want to watch movies for free legally, you have many options online. Here are the best free movie streaming sites. Read more . And here's how to download videos online. XVideoServiceThief is the ultimate Download Manager for online videos. XVideoServiceThief is the Ultimate Download Manager for Online Videos Have you ever come across an online video that you would like to download? Then this open source cross-platform tool is all you need. Read more.
Originally written by Taty on February 5, 2010.
