Youtube vs Vessel

[Mightyinvader]

So before I start this long winded opinion and comparison I do ask you to go read my other article I wrote about subscription based services which you can find in my signature. Thank you so much for reading I will include a TL;DR for those of you who have limited time, please not the TL;DR will miss some key points pointed out in the article.

 

Beginning with the history of YouTube,

Back in 2004, allot of people were starting to have digital cameras and footage to upload; however, were quickly running out of space on the old HDD. Three former Pay pal employees  had an idea to make a video sharing website where their users could upload content for free. On February 14 2005 YouTube was created. The first video ever uploaded to the site was called "My day at the zoo." And quite literally just had a co-founder talking about his day at the zoo. By 2007 this young tech kid started making videos online for NCIX and uploading them to YouTube. He of course is our great overload socks and sandals wearer, Mr. Linus Sebastian or @LinusTech. But this isn't about Linus cause frankly you all know the story.

Here is an interview if you are truly curious to learn more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJbLHLnTrd4

 

Heading back to the history of YouTube, on October the 9th in 2006 Google purchased YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars in stock. At the time of the purchase YouTube was having 65,00 videos uploaded to it with 100 million views per day. Yes you heard right, 100 million views per day after only being a company for a year and a half. Talk about growth eh?
YouTube also won person of the year for Time magazine in 2006.

 

YouTube has had over ten years to fix and improve its platform bringing in controversial features such as the copyright claim function they put in. Angry Joe did a rant about this in his typical angry fashion that should answer any questions you have about this function.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQfHdasuWtI 

 

Don`t forget this is also how Linus is able to take down early posts of scrapyard wars.

 

Nowadays, YouTube has over a billion users, with a monster 300+ hours of content uploaded every single minute, yes EVERY minute. Here are a few facts you can find on YouTube`s statistic page. https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html

-~60% of a creator’s views comes from outside their home country.

-YouTube is localized in 75 countries and available in 61 languages.

-Half of YouTube views are on mobile devices.

-Mobile revenue on YouTube is up over 100% y/y.

-85% of our TrueView in-stream ads are skippable

-Partner revenue is up over 50% from 2013 to 2014 (10/10/14)

 

Now that last fact is fairly interesting considering one of the major reasons to go to Vessel was for better CPM`S but we`ll discuss that later on.

 

For now we head back to asking the question, ``how in the hell can a new video platform outperform or even go head to head with a 10 year veteran?"

 

In order to answer that question we must first look at the history of Vessel, which I promise will be shorter than YouTube's.

 

Vessel came out swinging, offering better CPM's, a better user experience and the chance to have a 3$ a month premium membership in order to view content as early as 7 days before it hits YouTube. Many YouTubers including Linus offered a free year of premium if you signed up for Vessel within the first three days of its launch. Many of us did flock to this offer, for those who missed out, Ellen did another free year giveaway. Best part about that was you just had to skip the part with the code if you didn't care about the rest of the video.

 

Now Vessel was founded by Jason Kilar, who some of you may know or being the previous CEO of Hulu. It was publically launched on March 24th 2015. This wasn't the first time Kilar had the idea to have shows and videos offered earlier to paying members. “Then Hulu Plus came along and we offered Modern Family 7 days earlier and became the fastest paid subscription service in U.S. history.” Kilar said.

 

Some big name and long time YouTubers came to Vessel. To name a few Ellen, Linus, RWJ, GMM, Shane Dawson and Philip De Franco.

 

The idea that content was going be released late on YouTube appeared to have pissed a few people off, but as @nicklmg will tell you, the rate at which content is uploaded has not changed and if Vessel didn't exist you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

 

So what is holding Vessel back? The lack of content, there is simply not enough content to merit changing platforms or buying premium.

 

Vessel most definitely however, blows YouTube away on the mobile side of things. Almost everyone I know who watches YouTube on their mobile, use a third party application because the YouTube interface is just so utterly horrid.

 

I use a application called ProTube; however, you cannot download it anymore because YouTube copyrighted it for the fact you could have offline viewing. A feature which YouTube wants to implement for a certain monthly cost.

I have included side by side comparisons of the mobile interface of both Vessel and YouTube as well as a desktop interface comparison. 

ProTube does have a feature that neither Vessel nor YouTube has, background listening. Because for those of us who don't watch the wan show we just listen to it, we would rather not have to take up a whole device to do so. This is another feature the rumored premium YouTube will have.

Please see the attached files to view these photos. Thank you.

 

Looking at the first photo, it shows what a channel on Vessel will look like when on  mobile device. Note the 7 day exclusive means it will be available to non premium Vessel members and YouTube in 7 days. 

 

The second photo shows us the sidebar UI which includes many settings and features before scrolling down to your follows. Yes on Vessel you follow, you do not subscribe.  

 

The third photo was my front page on my mobile device. Here is where many including myself will have some concerns. I do not follow the channel being displayed on my home page, instead I have to go digging through my follows to my desired content creator and the video I wish to watch. However for anyone coming from YouTube this is nothing new. 

 

The final photo is a screenshot of the UI you see when you load a video. Few things to note, double clicking your screen does not go full screen it only pauses and plays the video. Even with a premium membership you will still get 3-5 second ads; however, it's truly not that bad. You will notice the heart icon for liking a video, you cannot dislike a video on vessel. This mobile UI is much cleaner than the stock YouTube interface for mobile devices. You can then watch related videos, comment and read the description, all pretty standard. Please note Vessel at the moment is not available on Android. 

Vessel's ability to determine landscape and portrait mode on mobile is remarkably bad and the quality is far worse as you cannot set a certain quality it goes based of internet connections. So if your internet dips for a second, so does the video quality. 

 

Now it is time for the YouTube Mobile interface. I will not include photos of the ProTube interface because I am comparing YouTube and Vessel directly, wouldn't be fair to add a third party application.

 

First off we see the homepage on mobile, clean with a popular video to start before going into some content from people I have subscribed to. 

 

Second photo has all my options, favourites and subscriptions, scroll down to see all the people you have subscribed to. 

 

Third photo shows what a channel on youtube looks like, nice and clean with suggested videos and most popular. 

 

Moving on to the interface when you finally click on the video. You'll see the subscribe button alongside options to share, favourite see related videos and scroll down further to comment. 

 

Note that YouTube has the choice to choose quality and it's landscape and portrait recognition is far better. The official YouTube app can play videos from your phone to your console and can be used on Windows OS, IOS and Android. You can turn off annotations if those bother as well.

 

Desktop interface comparison

 

Vessel Interface notes:

To start you don't get a profile image you simply get a letter based on what letter your name starts with. Pretty unoriginal and uninspiring. Much like the mobile interface you click on the left side to see features and follows. When you sign up for Vessel it will ask for you interests and show you videos from each category you selected.

 

 

Moving into what a channel would look like on Vessel I actually prefer the look and cleanliness that it brings. The black instead of the white really does it for me; however, that is my preference and your mileage may vary.

 

Going into a video interface it looks pretty identical to what the mobile interface looks like; however there is a option for quality. Note the only options are auto, low, medium and high with no specific resolution for either. This was a concern for Forum user @Gilm0r3 who expressed in my forum post asking for opinions of the Vessel vs YouTube conversation to quote "There needs to be more granular/descriptive quality settings. What res preset is high? 1080? 720? It just isn't descriptive or fine tunable.''

 

YouTube shows it stripes and experience with it's platform.

It boasts cleanliness and experience, a very noob friendly interface that can be navigated by someone who has never touched a computer. However let's not give too much praise as they have had 10 years to make this what it is. Subscriptions, options, alerts from google + letting you know if someone has replied to your comment is all right there on the front page and is incredibly easy to navigate. There channel and video interface is virtually identical to that of the mobile interface; however, 4k viewing is entirely possible on YouTube. On the whole YouTube has definitely made a few mistakes and still have things to improve however they are certainly looking sharp. YouTube is still polluted by advertising however. 

 

As Linus would say, conclusion time. 

 

Both platforms boast their own qualities.

Vessel for being less than 3 months old is looking very good and has lots of time to improve.

YouTube demonstrates that no matter how successful there is always room for improvement. 

YouTube definitely has a few things to work on for the mobile application and Vessel definitely has to tackle the resolution issues, pixelation problems and overall slower loading speeds across all platforms in comparison to YouTube. 

 

In order for Vessel to truly succeed they need to have more content on the site that appeals to more people, you can't just have big names out there, make it easier for new content creators to get out there and on your site. The lack of content and quality will definitely have some people second guessing the decision to start paying after their free year runs out. However competition only brings innovation and the future is most certainly bright for Vessel and YouTube will have to make it appealing to stay on their platform, because Vessel will only get better. Many people still ask "Is getting videos 7 days earlier in possibly lower quality really worth 3$?" We will have to see what the future holds won't we?

 

User testimonials from thread 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/383607-looking-for-user-testimonies/#entry5179136

 

@AlwaysFSX says: Works as intended, but my internet is slow that I have to watch in low quality because it doesn't buffer past two minutes because it gives you an error saying the stream was lost. (Paraphrasing on this)

 

@Minibois says: Vessel takes longer to load, gives less options with video quality and it's interface is more targeted towards tablet, which I don't like. 

And the home page is.. Eh, I only watch LTT on it, so I don't need the rest.

But YouTube isn't much better with all of these things

EDIT: Vessel video quality is so bad though, I really can't read what is on screenshots in videos.

 

@NeatSquidYT says: YouTube: Nicer UI, plays better, better quality options and nicer to navigate.

Vessel: Can watch LTT videos earlier.

 

@AnnoyingShelf says: Honestly, I kind of hate Vessel.  Colour is washed out, playback is laggy on my connection (it's buttery smooth on YouTube), and they're taking their sweet ass time developing the Android app.  Literally the only benefit is getting to watch content early, and I'm not even sure it's worth it.

 

@Gilm0re3 says: Vessel is great and all, but here's five things I dislike

1. There needs to be more granular/descriptive quality settings. What res preset is high? 1080? 720? It just isn't descriptive or fine tunable

2. Where is the shortcut to go fullscreen? YT's is a quick double tap of the video viewing window to go full, but if you do that on Vessel it just rapidly pause/plays.

3. Why is the watching on mobile disabled? You would think that if they didn't have an android app you could at least watch vessel in your phone's web browser. Guess us android users will have to wait for the app to come out before we can enjoy vessel videos on the go

4. As far as I can tell, there is no way to change your vessel profile picture. I hope someone can correct me on this because just a letter for your profile pic is stupid.

5. Users can't see who other users have replied to in the comments of a video. You may be able to tell that someone was replying to another user based on their comment, but nothing actually says or shows the person or the comment they were replying to. That definitely needs to be fixed.

Also, annotations or something similar would be cool, but definitely not necessary. It's just funny how Linus will say "click here to visit our forums" when at least on vessel there is no way to do that. 

 

@neebuilda says: Slower than youtube and the videos don't look as nice. it is also pretty hard to get to new videos from my subscriptions, and the homescreen doesn't seem to tailor to my subscriptions. however i love the look of their website, with the large pictures spanning the whole background(especially linus in shades). Also its always nice to know that you are doing that little bit extra to support channels by watching them on vessel.

 

Thank you so much for reading 

 

Considering this is a objective compare and contrast you are gonna have to read and draw your own conclusions, sorry but a proper TL;DR just isn't possible for this type of article

 

 

[Decon]

+1 just for writing such a massive post lol; will read later

[Mightyinvader]

+1 just for writing such a massive post lol; will read later

Thanks.

[LinusTech]

Very interesting read. I hadn't looked at them that closely side by side.

[mrswagbhinav]

I agree with Gilm0re3 and oh shit Linus replied...HOLD EM BACK! HOLD EM BACK.  but I still prefer YouTube anyday.

[Enderman]

The point of vessel is not to replace youtube. Its here to coexist.

Both platforms need improvement, and we can pretty much all agree youtube is better.

I still watch on vessel because its one week early though, and I don't have any issues with it.

[linustechtipsbro]

nice

[Jade]

The point of vessel is not to replace youtube. Its here to coexist.

Both platforms need improvement, and we can pretty much all agree youtube is better.

I still watch on vessel because its one week early though, and I don't have any issues with it.

Pretty much this. Vessel has weird artifacting in the video (off-set colors when compared to YouTube, etc), but it's not a major issue and other than that it's fine, if not a little bit clunky.

[Mightyinvader]

The point of vessel is not to replace youtube. Its here to coexist.

Both platforms need improvement, and we can pretty much all agree youtube is better.

I still watch on vessel because its one week early though, and I don't have any issues with it.

I tried to keep this as objective as possible so you guys can draw your own conclusions, tried to list pros and cons of both which i hope I did succeed at doing

[,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,]

Vessel will ruin a lot of youtubers slowly but surly if they become too greedy. I don't like it therefore I don't use it and will never.

[GrimNeo]

+1 just for writing such a massive post lol; will read later

Great article. I will have to watch vids at home.

 

Very interesting read. I hadn't looked at them that closely side by side.

Your title ftw. Also how are your cats doing? I miss seeing videos about them. Rocket and Rumble ftw. My cats just turned a year old. Now they are destroying my carpet. Waiting for new cat scratchers to come in the mail.

[Codymm03]

Very interesting read. I hadn't looked at them that closely side by side.

 

LINUS READ YOUR DIARY IN A SUPER FUN VIDEO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Aytex]

i still like youtube

[Mightyinvader]

Pros and cons of mobile interfaces IOS,android, and windows  coming soon (hopefully saturday) gotta do some research. Please note this will be a purely objective article. Comparing the mobile Interfaces. Not about which company is better or why. Please keep that in mind when replying to the article when Im done writing it

[KE2012]

I have it but I don't find myself using it as the bugger keeps asking me to sign in and I mostly want to watch the videos when I'm eating, so the last thing I can be hassled with is sitting down with my food and entering all my details, yes I could do that before I get my food but damit, that requires a change to my regime. 

[WereCat]

Nice post.

I feel like Vessel sacrificed a lot of functionality for the design. It looks modern and stylish but you have to dive trough the UI to get somewhere you want. It is like running against the wind.

YouTube is better in this aspect by a quite a big chunk but it is not perfect either.

Regarding the video quality.. Oh boy..

[mrswagbhinav]

The point of vessel is not to replace youtube. Its here to coexist.

Both platforms need improvement, and we can pretty much all agree youtube is better.

I still watch on vessel because its one week early though, and I don't have any issues with it.

Just found out YouTube has 8K support. Then again there's no way to view that and I can hardly stream 1440p without buffering or stuttering.

[Bensemus]

Personally the ios YouTube app is years ahead of the vessel app. On the YouTube app I can have the video playing in the top left and look through the description or go through comments with out covering the video, something I do a lot. In vessel I either have to watch the video or read comments, not both. I have no idea how replies work in vessel as I haven't gotten a single replay to my replies so I've kinda just stopped using the comment system. Even logging into my account on a computer I can't see any replies. The tiled layout of the home page is really in your face with the full screen ones. YouTube's thumb nails work way better for me. 

[Mew]

Two things that made me stop using Youtube in favor of Vessel was that there's no lag when pausing on vessel; youtube has a 1-2 second animation lag when you click on the video to pause. The second thing is that videos load instantly in vessel and quality also changes instantly; Youtube will just sit there playing the video and then all of a sudden decided to change the quality. 

[RainColt]

This is interesting seeing that I am just about over Vessel because my mobile experience looks like this

And while I can request the desktop site it's finicky and also refuses to load the videos