My co-founder and I have recently launched our project which lets people build stores to sell their streaming video content. We've been working on it for almost 5 months now.
My main concern is how do you plan to compete with YouTube? They offer a rentals marketplace which may still be in beta. Also, they have serious money behind their technology for large scale streaming, and currently have a majority of the traffic in that space.
We are more targeted towards small-time content producers than the major movie production companies. Think mom and pop store selling custom bags vs Nike bags sold at Walmart.
We run on Google Appengine & Amazon Cloudfront, so there shouldn't be any problem with scaling. We also use http://zencoder.com/ (ycombinator '10) for video encoding, and they've been great!
just like Vimeo, we are trying to target at the "indie" and more serious group of video makers than YouTube, by providing them lots more room of customization and personal branding.
the focus is very different: Vimeo and YouTube are more like a hub, while we try to be a service.
Thanks! guys for helping me understand a lil bit more.
We are currently in the YouTube Rentals program, may have to test it out and see how some of our content performs on your platform. Once we finish, off course.
Right now it's only streaming, but the purchase will be recorded and the viewer can stream it as many times as she likes.
It's easy to do the downloading option but less secure in terms of piracy issues.
Why not make it an option (for the content producer)? A lot of filmmakers generate income from stock footage on the side as well. You guys could undercut the stock footage monopoly. Just a thought from a prospective client. Thanks.
We're using Amazon Cloudfront so there should be an edge server in Europe, but maybe it takes awhile before it's distributed there. That being said, I've got a slower connection at home which can stutter on some of the HD stuff. It's a trade off on using RTMP; security vs the ability to buffer the entire video.
