New video streaming service ‘Vessel’ out now, includes one year free subscription

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Former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar has been hard at world building a new service dedicated to helping the world keep track of their favorite popular YouTube artists and channels, as well as other web shows. Wishing you could watch the next FunnyOrDie release before all of your friends do? Well, now you can.

Vessel is a video streaming service that gathers up some of the more popular web series channels and displays them in a news feed way so you can watch new content. With a subscription to Vessel, you can even see new episodes before the rest of the world does.

The app starts you off by presenting you with category options that you are interested in, like Gaming or Cars. Then, you can select specific channels, shows, and music artists to follow based on the categories that you previously selected.

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Once you have input your preferences, you can watch new and recent videos from the channels and shows you follow. Scroll down the feed to see different content. Tap on a video to watch it.

You can watch a video in portrait mode and check out other videos from the same channel, see a list of related content, and see what other comments have been added.

Or you can tip your iPhone to landscape mode and watch the video in full screen.

There are more than 130 content creators currently signed on with Vessel, which is not a whole lot compared to the grand scale of YouTube. However, the company is actively seeking additional channels, so it is likely there will me more added in the future.

Vessel is free to download and will provide free advertisement-supported, non-subscription access to everyone. However, for the next three days, you can get a full year of the premium subscription for free. You don’t even need to provide a credit card or agree to a contract, so you won’t be automatically charged anything in 2016 if you forget you cancel the subscription.

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After one year, or for users that didn’t get in on the early bird special, the premium subscription cost $2.99 per month for ad-free viewing and includes early access to video uploads. So, if you are a super fan of The Nerdist, you will be able to watch their latest videos three days before the general public does.

With the current available content, three bucks for early access may not seem like such a great deal, but if Vessel takes off, we could see music video releases, tech hands-on videos, and more in advance, which might be kind of cool for only about $36 per year.

Luckily, we have a year to decide if it is worth the cost.

Vessel is available on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Download it in the App Store today.