Hello,

I want a Video site for my business idea. The site would be similar to YouTube but on a much smaller scale. Eg. Nowhere near as many users, but similar in that the website houses videos and pictures.

Is this something I can do myself? with SBI? Should I outsource the project or try and build myself? How expensive is a Video site with a chat forum?


Thank you!

Leroy

Video sites are probably one of the most expensive kind You will need LOTS of bandwidth if you manage to drive a lot of visitors to your site. And this bandwidth costs a lot. You also need a lot of hard disk free space which is also quite expensive. Overall, you have to be ready to spend money to do that.

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Hmmm . . Yeah thats what I keep reading on the net.

If I was going to create a junior site - as in a small play model of the big one I want to make do you think thats a good idea? I was thinking of doing it in website 2nite? Just muck around, upload videos, get my text and content right etc etc?

Hey thanks for the response!

Leigh

A video site is rather complex.

I can say this from personal experience. First of all, as it has been said already, it's a lot of bandwidth. Right now, we're doing hosting with GoDaddy at about 15 / month AND another $100 / month for bandwidth. If we go over our bandwidth, we pay more!

That's on the low side as well. We were able to get good deals with our bandwidth host, so we're paying less than most other people.

This is just the costs that it takes to run the actual website. Development costs was about $8K and counting.

Not only that, but you can't just know about how to develop websites, but you also have to learn about different video technologies (ie. streaming and buffering).

If you want to use streaming, you'll have to have a streaming server, which GoDaddy (Website2Nite) does not provide, and you'll have to have the technology for a streaming player (ie. windows media player - BAD, flash = good, silverlight = good).

Overall, a video site is definitely something that beginners will do. It takes experienced programmers and web developers in order to make it run. Not to mention lots of startup capital whether you're going to do it in house or outsource.

I'm not trying to be the bearer of bad news, but I will say that it's pretty difficult and it's usually not something that a beginner would take on. I'm not saying that you are, but you really have to gauge your skill if you're going to do it yourself.

I hope that helps you make a decision for your project! Good luck!

If you want to see the video website that I developed for my client, you can view it here: http://www.golivestream.com. It may give you more of an idea of what a streaming video website might require!

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The bandwidth for a video site can get pricey. You could host the video elsewhere (ie. YouTube) and embed them in the site and that would not be too bad.

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Guys thanks for all the info,

what do you think about a site like this one?

www.virtualtourist.com

Is this really intense, expensive, complicated to do? Even a smaller version?

hmmm . . . . . .?

Yup it looks intense i found my way to the London section and it alone had 92 videos and there is about 100+ cities

The site has logins and everything

If this is new to you, the whole website building etc then I think your aiming to high, you gotta be realistic

woh!

Ok classic!

Well if I am going to outsource and I want to start small would you have any good suggestions for a site that I could present a certain number of vidoes, pictures, info etc. I basically want to be able to manage a nice site with information for young Australians travelling to Europe - but I have info videos that I would like to screen also? Perhaps a blog is the best option?

hmmmm . . . . .

Thansk for all you advice!

Having the extra info on want you want to achieve is helpful, I think there is no problem with making a site on the topic as for the videos you can easily host them on youtube or vimeo, some sites allow you to customize your videos more than others, then you can make them display on your site

and you have unlimited bandwidth etc