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Vessel
New online video subscription service Vessel has opened up to the general public, presenting a whole new threat to YouTube's dominance.
Created by the former CEO of US video subscription service Hulu, Jason Kilar, Vessel has been in private beta for much of the year. Now it's available for anyone to sign up to.
What's more, in a bid to provide an early boost to those subscription numbers, early subscribers get the first year of the service for free, with no need to input payment details or anything. You'll need to sign up within 72 hours, though.
Vessel's concept is to offer up content from established YouTube stars, but 72 hours early. Eventually that early access will come at the cost of a monthly subscription fee ($2.99 a month, which works out to £2), before filtering through to the free, ad-funded side of the service.
It's a trick Kilar and his team pulled off with Hulu itself, which provided early access to certain TV shows for subscribers with great success within its available markets.
Another appealing thing about Vessel is its interface - a modern, attractive, visually rich experience that offers looped preview clips in among the usual stills.
This uncluttered approach has clearly been optimised for mobile, too. There's an iOS app available from the off, with Android in the works.
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As for those YouTube stars, Vessel has been designed to tempt them over from Google's sprawling service with higher royalty rates and various incentives. One of those incentives is a $7 payment for every fan a video creator persuades to sign up to the service.
Head on over to the Vessel homepage now to sign up for your year of free access.
