Vessel has finally launched and you can get it free for a year

Late last year, former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar showed off Vessel, a premium streaming service aimed at building new businesses for YouTube stars and other popular video creators. For $2.99 a month, Vessel gives subscribers early access to the videos that will eventually be posted to YouTube and elsewhere. Following an invitation-only public beta, Vessel is now available to everyone — and if you sign up in the next 72 hours, you can get it free for a year. That’s right, a year. To entice creators to begin “windowing” their videos, Vessel needs to offer them large audiences. And those audiences may be skeptical of paying a monthly subscription to get an advance look at videos that will be available for free as little as three days later. That’s why Vessel is offering 12 months of free access to its premium service — and you won’t even have to give them your credit card number to get it. There are now more than 130 creators who are posting their videos to Vessel first, including Phil DeFranco’s show “The Vloggity,” GloZell Green, and Tré Melvin. How tempted you are to subscribe to Vessel likely depends on whether you consider yourself a true fan of any of the individual creators. (The company says its creators reached a combined audience of 200 million people on free services.)