Vessel readies on slipway for 2015 launch

It’s the much talked-about startup with heavyweight founders and backers that could just mark the beginning of the end for YouTube as we know it – “Vessel” is getting ready to launch a website (and app) that promises to pay video creators far more for their efforts than Google’s platform ever has, and they’re proactively signing up YouTube celebrity names.

The idea’s simple; Creators sign a contract to deliver their videos exclusively to Vessel for a fixed period (minimum 72 hours) before releasing them elsewhere. In return, Vessel promises revenue that – they say – could be around $50 USD per 1,000 views (kerching! Yes please!). That’s a whole load more dosh than YouTube’s ad revenue split will ever provide.

Vessel says it’ll do this two ways. Firstly, the audience will have to pay $2.99 USD per month which Creators get a share of. Secondly there will be advertising but with a much greater revenue split towards the Creators: 70% versus YouTube’s 45%

The way the subscription payments will be doled out is a 60% share to Creators, divided up by their share in viewing duration (not views though,  interestingly – it’s duration ie minutes watched).

Clearly the whole pay upfront proposition is only going to work for Creators who’ve established a rabid and substantial fanbase – people on the scale of PewDiePie, Zoella and the like*, those with at least hundreds of thousands of subscribers already.

For the rest of us – for example, Tubeshooter has just shy of 1,000 YouTube subscribers at the time of writing, sob – YouTube will no doubt continue to play the most important role in getting video out there to the mass market.

Take a look, and perhaps apply, via www.vessel.com/blog

*We are not saying these people have signed up to Vessel. It was just an example, OK?