Ask HN: Starting Up A Stock Site?

#1

Post by cianestro » Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 3:06 AM UTC

I've been asked to make a stock media site that would hypothetically sell top quality stock video footage, VFX, pictures, audio, and music for fractions less (bare minimum and all original/legitimate) than current competitors. All artists would earn at least 50% from their content versus only So my question is 1) What would I be getting into here? 2) Roughly, how expensive is it to run a stock site from beginning to end? 3) What would you want to see in a future stock site (programmers and artists alike)?

Thanks for your time.

Re: Ask HN: Starting Up A Stock Site?

#2

Post by kljensen » Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 4:10 AM UTC

You would be getting into a very crowded market with large network effects and economies of scale.

Your skills may be more fruitfully applied elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: Starting Up A Stock Site?

#3

Post by jashmenn » Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 5:10 AM UTC

This sounds like a great idea.

There is a lot of competition, but don't be afraid of that. You probably can undercut in price and at the same time increase commissions to content creators.

I would guess S3 is going to be the cheapest in terms of storage and bandwidth. Lets say you're storing 1TB of video, uploading 50GB/mo with 5TB downloads per month. Then you're looking at around $900/mo in expenses ($800 of that is in bandwidth).

Re: Ask HN: Starting Up A Stock Site?

#4

Post by cianestro » Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 5:43 AM UTC

jashmenn wrote: post #3

This sounds like a great idea. There is a lot of competition, but don't be afraid of that. You probably can undercut in price and at the same time increase commissions to content creators. I would guess S3 is going to be the cheapest in terms of storage and bandwidth. Lets say you're storing 1TB of video, uploading 50GB/mo with 5TB downloads per month. Then you're looking at around $900/mo in expenses ($800 of that i…

Thanks, this was the type of answer I was looking for. S3 definitely sounds affordable. I knew bandwidth would get expensive but had no clue exactly how bad.