Vessel was a commercial video service launched in early 2015 by former

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television seri ...

executives

Jason Kilar Jason Alan Kilar (; born April 26, 1971) is an American businessman. He was the CEO of WarnerMedia from May 2020 to April 2022. He was previously an Amazon executive, the founding CEO of the short-lived Vessel, and the CEO of Hulu. Early life ...

and Richard Tom. Vessel was acquired by

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

on October 26, 2016 and was closed on October 31, 2016.

History

The service resembled that of

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

, whereby a viewer could watch videos for free. However, viewers could add "Early Access" at a $3 monthly or $20 annual fee to their account, which allowed them to view videos a minimum of 72 hours before the video is released to the general public. Vessel then created mobile applications for iOS and

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

devices which optimized the videos for mobile viewing. The idea behind the site was that creators would be able to gain more revenue from their videos than on YouTube due to the subscription fee as well as advertisements. After the site was created, YouTube personalities such as

LinusTechTips Linus Media Group Inc. (LMG) is a privately held Canadian entertainment company founded by Linus Sebastian and Yvonne Ho in 2012. The company owns and operates several YouTube channels and podcasts that cover technology, most popularly ''Li ...

, Craig Benzine,

Connor Franta Connor Joel Franta (born September 12, 1992) is an American YouTuber, author, artist, and businessman. , his eponymous main channel on YouTube has over 4.91 million subscribers. Franta was formerly a member of YouTube group ''Our Second Life'' ...

Shane Dawson Shane Lee Yaw (born July 19, 1988), better known as Shane Dawson, is an American YouTuber, actor, fimmaker, writer, and musician. One of the first people to rise to fame on YouTube, he began making videos in 2008 at the age of 19 and garnered ...

, Doug Walker, Caspar Lee, Tanya Burr, '' Good Mythical Morning'', '' Epic Meal Time'', Super Best Friends Play,

Marcus Butler Marcus Lloyd Butler (born 18 December 1991) is an English model and former YouTuber, whose channels have reached over 4.1 million subscribers. In 2015, he released an autobiographical book, titled ''Hello Life!''. Butler co-hosted a radio sh ...

, Kent Heckel, LaToya Forever, Delaila Johnson, Tre Melvin and Jack Vale signed up to have their content streamed on Vessel. On October 26, 2016,

Verizon Communications Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

announced that it had acquired Vessel, and that it would be shut down on October 31. Vessel's team was hired to revamp Verizon's fledgling video streaming service go90 (resulting in 155 members of the service's existing staff being laid off), with Richard Tom retained and appointed as chief technology officer of Verizon Digital Entertainment. Kilar departed after the sale.

References

External links

* Internet properties established in 2015 Internet properties disestablished in 2016 Defunct video on demand services Subscription video on demand services Defunct subscription services IOS software 2016 mergers and acquisitions Verizon Communications acquisitions Former video hosting services {{website-stub

History

See also

References

External links