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Vimeo buys Livestream and plans new push with live video

Vimeo buys Livestream and plans new push with live video

Online video service Vimeo is getting into the live game to take on Twitch, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter among other companies.

Vimeo is making its move by agreeing a deal to buy Livestream, one of the pioneers in the live-video streaming world, for an undisclosed amount. It hopes to complete the acquisition early in the fourth quarter of this year.

The company is launching a new product for filmmakers and influencers called Vimeo Live, which will include Livestream's technology. Its tools will help people produce, edit, stream and archive live broadcasts, as well as make money from them.

“Live streaming is the number one request from our creator community this year, and we’re focused on bringing a new level of quality, convenience and craft to this evolving medium,” said Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud in a statement.

"With the launch of Vimeo Live and the addition of Livestream’s impressive team and innovative product suite, we can empower a diverse range of creators to produce beautiful live experiences with professionalism and ease."

How appealing will this be to online-video makers and influencers? Livestream already works with brands like Spotify, Dow Jones and the Philadelphia Eagles through its business-to-business operation, but its profile is lower in the world of individual influencers.

Vimeo pitches itself as "the world’s largest ad-free open video platform" - careful wording since that rules out YouTube, which is much bigger as a video service. Vimeo claims 170 million viewers globally, while YouTube claims 1.5 billion, and Twitch 100 million.


Contributing Editor

Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)