I’m a huge fan of YouTube and Google, but I have to say that part of the whole web 2.0 phenomenon that I (and others) get excited about comes from a beautiful looking interface. I watched a video on Vimeo the other day and my initial impression was that Vimeo was cool. But then it happened, I clicked the sign up link. Woah!

That screen is out-of-this-world cool! And they use it for both their sign in and sign up screens.

All too often applications will take the quick route and drop an ugly sign in box inline with what you’re viewing. That works, but creating something beautiful sometimes works better. I like Vimeo’s philosophy here.