Here’s something that may blow a few minds- YouTube is, by far, not the only available video hosting and sharing website on the ‘net. There’s a whole host of (admittedly rather stunning) alternatives to YouTube out there. While most of them don’t necessarily have the advantage of YouTube’s huge user base, they make up for that shortcoming in many different ways- from more features, to additional upload time. Here’s just a few websites that are worth looking into if you’ve grown tired of the ‘tube- or if you’re simply looking to expand your boundaries a bit.

Dailymotion: With 60 minute size and 2 gigabyte length limits, Dailymotion is a crisp-looking website which arranges videos by browsable category and sports a focus on professionalism.  Note that not all content on Dailymotion is guaranteed to be family friendly- though they do a pretty good job of blocking out the stuff that isn’t, with their family filter.

Viddler: Rather than going the brute-force route and trying to compete directly with YouTube, Viddler’s gone in a completely different direction, and is attempting to out-feature the site, so to speak. Designed more for enterprise users than for consumers, Viddler allows complete customization of the viewing experience, and provides analytics data along with a full-featured API.

Blip.tv: As you might’ve figured from the URL, this one’s the perfect hosting site to start with if you’re looking at getting a web-series on its feet, and, for some reason, you don’t care to use YouTube. With a focus on uploading regular content and a wide array of Internet TV shows to choose from, Blip’s probably the closest thing a lot of people are going to get to watching cable on their computer without having to download an outside client.

Veoh: Three words: Unlimited. Upload. Size. That’s Veoh’s selling point, and it’s definitely a good one. It focuses more on movies and documentaries rather than the shorter videos you’d find on other hosting sites, as a result.

Vimeo: Here’s another site that emphasizes creativity and professionalism over…well…whatever it is we might find on YouTube. I’m not saying that creative, artistic videos are hard to come by on the latter, just that you’re just as likely to find nonsensical mashups, cute animal films, and completely insane ramblings as opposed to something crisp and well-designed. As an added bonus, Vimeo features a number of tutorials to help its users make better video.

If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s kind of like YouTube’s older, less-successful brother.

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