Technology

Are You Willing to Pay to Watch Video Clips Online?

Published

9 years ago

March 24, 2015

In this photo taken Monday, March 23, 2015, Vessel CEO and co-founder Jason Kilar, left, and co-founder Richard Tom pose for a photo at their headquarters in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Would you pay to see some of the Internet’s best video clips first? Vessel, a new service trying to change the way that short video pieces make money on the Internet and mobile devices, is betting on it.

Instead of free-for-all distribution supported solely by advertising, Vessel will charge $3 per month for exclusive early access to clips of musicians, sporting events, comedians and many other forms of entertainment not available on YouTube or any other digital video service for at least three days. CEO Jason Kilar, formerly head of Hulu Plus, believes Vessel’s model will be able to pay video producers about $50 per 1,000 views of their clips on the site. That compares with just $2.20 per 1,000 views of ad-supported video at sites such as YouTube, Kilar says.

The extra money, in theory, will provide digital video producers with the means and incentive to create even better content that will prod more people to subscribe to Vessel. The same “virtuous cycle” has enabled Internet video service Netflix to finance more of its own original programming and pay more money to license compelling entertainment while its audience has nearly tripled to 57 million customers from 20 million in the past four years.

“We think this is going to be a really big deal, like the advent of cable-and-satellite television in the 1970s,” Kilar, 43, says of Vessel.

YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc., says Kilar’s estimates are wrong, but declined to reveal its average payout per 1,000 views. Payments to YouTube partners have increased by at least 50 percent in each of the past three years, the company says. Research firm eMarketer Inc. estimated that YouTube’s total ad revenue last totaled $7.6 billion and about $4.6 billion was paid out to YouTube’s partners.

The concept, which has been in beta testing for two months, debuts Tuesday. Anyone who signs up with Vessel by 3 a.m. EDT Friday will receive a one-year subscription for free.

Vessel’s ambitions sound like wishful thinking to Forrester Research analyst Jim Nail, who doubts many people will pay to watch a video that will be available for free within a few days.

“That kind of restriction only works when you have content that people are really knocking down the doors to see,” Nail says. “It is going to totally come down to what kind of content that they can get. Unless they have the content that justifies paying $3 a month, nothing will save them.”

Vessel so far has about 70,000 video clips separated into about 160 categories, including sports, comedy, music, video games and food. Many clips are free and supported by ads, just like most video on YouTube. Vessel’s subscription side features videos from about 130 contributors. They include Emmy Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin, who is showcasing “Love Ride,” a series featuring him dispensing relationship advice in the back seat of taxis, and the online comedy duo of Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, who have more than 3 million subscribers on their YouTube channel.

Machinima CEO Chad Gutstein anticipates a large audience will pay for early access to the video gaming specialist’s clips because video game enthusiasts “are more engaged and more obsessed with what they are doing than anything I have ever experienced. They just want to be there first.”

Before Vessel, Kilar spent five years running online television streaming service Hulu, which was launched in 2007 by a group of TV networks trying to counter YouTube’s popularity. By the time Kilar stepped down in 2013, Hulu’s premium Plus service had attracted about 6 million subscribers, though it never mounted much of a challenge to YouTube, where about 300 hours of video is posted per minute.

Since Kilar and another former Hulu executive Rich Tom started Vessel last year, the San Francisco startup has raised $77 million from two venture capital firms, Greylock Partners and Benchmark Capital, and Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos.

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Attorney General Rob Bonta, Oakland Lawmakers, Introduce Legislation to Protect Youth Online

At a press conference in downtown Oakland on Jan. 29, Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) to announce two pieces of legislation designed to protect children online. The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act and Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act.

Published

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April 16, 2024

Oakland Post

From left to right: Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), Attorney General Rob Bonta and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) at a press conference introducing legislation to protect young people online.

By Magaly Muñoz

The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act and Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act.

Skinner authored SB 976, which addresses online addiction affecting teenage users, while Wicks’s bill, AB 1949, takes on big tech by proposing data privacy and children rights protections.

“Social media companies unfortunately show us time and time again that they are all too willing to ignore the detriment to our children, the pain to our children, the mental health and physical challenges they face, in order to pursue profits,” Bonta said.

SB 976 would allow parents to control the nature and frequency of the content their under-18-year-old children see on social media. Notifications from social media platforms would also be paused from midnight to 6 am and controls would allow parents to set time limits on their children’s usage based on their discretion.

Skinner stated that the longer that kids are on their phones during the day, the higher the risk for depression, anxiety and other related issues.

The bill would also push to get rid of addictive media that is harmful for young women and girls, specifically image filters that mimic cosmetic plastic surgery.

Bonta and 33 other attorney generals had previously filed a lawsuit against Meta, owner of the popular social media applications Instagram and Facebook. The filing claims that the company purposefully uses algorithmized content that harms younger audiences.

“Social media companies have the ability to protect our kids, they could act, but they do not,” Skinner said.

The Child Data Privacy Act would strengthen existing protections for data privacy under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The lawmakers argue that the law does not have effective protection for those under 18 years old.

Wicks stated that the bill would forbid businesses from collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data of anyone underage unless they receive informed consent, or it becomes necessary for the purpose of the business.

Wicks added that the acts would make it so that a search on the internet like “How do I lose weight?” would not result in dieting pill advertisements targeting youth, which, some experts report, could be harmful to their mental and physical health.

“In a digital age where the vulnerabilities of young users are continually exploited, we cannot afford to let our laws lag behind, our children deserve complete assurance that their online experience will be safeguarded from invasive practices,” Wicks said.

Supporters of the two acts say they have gained bipartisan support issue, but the authors and Bonta expect them to be met with pushback from the affected companies.

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Unleashing the Power_ Discover the The Thrills…F-TYPE Convertible

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Join us for a virtual car’s best-detailed walkaround of the sleek and stylish 2024 Jaguar F-TYPE AWD convertible. Get an up-close look at the exterior design, interior features, and performance capabilities of this luxury sports car. From its powerful engine to its advanced technology, this video will give you a comprehensive overview of what makes […]
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Join us for a virtual car’s best-detailed walkaround of the sleek and stylish 2024 Jaguar F-TYPE AWD convertible. Get an up-close look at the exterior design, interior features, and performance capabilities of this luxury sports car. From its powerful engine to its advanced technology, this video will give you a comprehensive overview of what makes the F-TYPE AWD convertible stand out on the road. Unique to AutoNetwork.com.