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Comment by d4ft | Hacker News Reader

So, I'll play the devils advocate. What exactly is the value proposition here? Are there people scouring the internet for certain indie movies? I like indie movies, and I like the idea of rewarding the people who are behind them, but it is hard for me to imagine what an itunes for indie movies with a marketing spin (is that what we are talking about here?) is really going to accomplish. I have netflix. I can get a lot of movies from there, for cheap. (including many of the more famous indie films). I also have HBO, more cheap movies. Granted, they aren't indie movies, but I can't see my self spending extra money for movies by people I don't know and have heard nothing about. Maybe I just don't get it. So, I guess, could you explain a little more about what the niche you're filling is?

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Playing devils devils advocate, I think the "right" answer would be that you provide a more efficient market that existing distribution channels -- easier to access, more readily available information, freer access. Then you combine that with deeper engagement and virality that existing channels don't have (and one that actually works instead of sounds good on paper)

That's probably the "right" answer. Not sure it's theirs, but it's how I would answer the objection if I were them.

That's a good answer. Our main goal is to get a lot little nuances right, as well as some big things. When you distribute online you'll get a bunch of services which offer the mechanism to online distribuion, but don't take proper advantage of the new web like social networks.

There are people who scour the Internet for indie films. This usually takes place in scifi, horror, and documentary genres. I'll agree that most people wouldn't go around looking for indie films otherwise, especially if there is no price difference between a low budget indie and a hollywood blockbuster. However my main goal right now is to provide a service for the smaller indie films out there. Making commission off sales is an added bonus, but the main monetization effort is to provide a service for indie content producers, big or small. Now hopefully when we've built something great enough to make self distribution more viable option, hopefully better more mainstream-popular type films can make their way onto the platform. That's when it would be ideal to roll out an iTunes type store to let people discover content, and profit largely off of commision.

I think YouTube is a great example of letting anyone find their audience. And I believe that if indie filmmakers go digital, they too can find a larger Audience, especially if we go social like YouTube.

Hi Daniel-

I guess what my argument comes down to is this: if I were an indie director, given the choice, I would prefer to get my movies seen by more people, and make less money (at least in the beginning), than set a price and make people pay, which will inevitably decrease viewings. I think the best way to accomplish the former, would be to put it on youtube and promote it. Yes, casual browsers would be lost. But, with the pay-per-view model, we are not getting too many casual browsers anyway, since they have to pay. So, perhaps the best way to do such a thing would be to have a youtube for indie movies and just let them be free.

Further, I also see problems with the distribution model. If we store these movies in the cloud, you need internet to watch them. That kind of sucks. If you store them locally, they take up a ton of space. That also sucks. If we can delete them after we watch and then download them later, that still necessitates an internet connection, and kind of sucks anyway.

As a final note, I guess I haven't convinced myself either way, so thanks for playing along.

More people != a good movie. I think a director is more likely to want a way to direct their movie at the audience it's intended for more than anything else.

Exposure to more people increases the chances of someone interested seeing it. So unless your movie is a sex tape, I'd say it's desirable to have it seem by as many people as you can, as long as the cost isn't too much to distribute it for free.

Let me clarify a few things: a) this is a DRM-free digital downloads platform. When I said "store in the clouds," I meant that additionally they are stored on our servers so you can re-download them.

b) Your point about giving away films for free is actually what indie filmmakers are saying. The person I consulted with specifically asked if I could let people pay what they want, and I've heard filmmakers on the internet talk about giving away films for free for exposure. This is also an example of the nuances to distributing online that I was talking about, that I will try to resolve for indie filmmakers.

So on the platform, you can set your price to free if you wish. And one of the other features we want to offer is cross-upload (of trailers and promotional material) to Youtube/video sites. This way your film will get exposure to Youtube's userbase, but you retain all control of the full length film on our site.

Yeah I haven't convinced myself either, just trying to work through the idea in my head :)

There are a lot of problems with definitions and such. What's an Indie movie? Is it different than the usual YouTube amateur dreck? Who is really the customer, the watchers or the producers? How does reputation, goal-seeking, and game mechanics fit into the usage model? Why would I come back to the site? What kinds of real-world strategies are going to get you around (and make you attractive as a pickup for) big-time distributors? What are the distributors afraid of? What can't they master? Lots of loose ends.

I love movies, and I'd love to see some good Indies, but the signal-to-noise ratio would have to be abnormally high for me to be a regular participant. Videos, shorts, and movies are a much different art form than, say, music or blogging.

It's a neat overall idea. Like everything else, though, the devil is in the details.

Let me define what an indie in my scenario is: any one/group trying to distribute video content he/she/they created without the aide of a third-party distributor, whether it may be a direct-to-dvd company, or Twentieth Century Fox.

Now the main target of this service, at least initially, is to find an audience for and distribute the films that

a) can't find even a direct-to-dvd distributor let alone Fox

b) have found a direct-to-dvd type distributor but have found it unfulfilling/unsuccessful

Like I've said before, I believe the internet will allow films to find audiences they may not have if it only went to DVD or on Netflix, or Blockbuster online. For this reason initially we want to target the low end of content on the quality spectrum, charge them to try to distribute their films using our platform online, and go from there. So their goals may not be to get picked up by a big time distributor. Our goal is to simply let them get some sort of return, or exposure, for their film (or web series).

One of the directors I'm consulting with had found a distributor, but has decided that looking back he would have self-distributed. He still has the internet download rights to his film so he is planning to use the service when it goes live.

If you have any specific concerns, please ask so I can alleviate your concerns, or revise my ideas. I've thought this over a lot and am perfectly comfortable revealing my secrets.

So you're in the distribution business, like BlockBuster, not in the promotion business like a producing company, or in the storage business, like YouTube. That begins to draw in the focus.

You are looking to distribute marginal-quality videos to the maximum number of people possible. This allows people with unseen work to get noticed (forget follow-up revenues here) As a distributor, then, you are going to have to have some hoops directors are going to have to jump through -- you interest in in your value chain, not in content or indy providers. That means you need to come up with a quick way to vet/categorize indy movies in such a way that the maximum number of people will get to see each one.

Oddly enough, this might not be a volume play. Or in other words, you might be better off "showing" one movie a month rather than trying to get as many as possible. In fact, the more indy movies you get, the worse it may actually get for you -- remember you are not YouTube -- unless you have some easy way of engaging users and directing them to appropriate content.

Neat business idea. Lots of cool little twists and turns in there. Good luck in the execution!

Almost correct.

I am in the distribution business, but with a focus on indie films and web series. This means helping them as much as technically possible with features to aide in promotion (without promoting it for them).

So the focus is to bridge the technical gap for indie content producers looking to distribute via the internet.

Marginal quality videos will be the main focus, because it's the group that will likely have immediate need for this service.

>That means you need to come up with a quick way to vet/categorize indy movies in such a way that the maximum number of people will get to see each one.

Not necessarily. I'd like to eventually have a content discovery platform, with content worth discovering, but with marginal quality content, I think the best way to approach this is to first provide them the means to distribute their work, and work up from there. So they will be able to easily obtain a means for distribution that's more targeted for their purposes, with a low barrier to entry.

I'm going to hit this one more time to make sure you understand what I'm saying.

Let's say you want to run a trucking business. Your job is to take groceries -- any groceries - from point A to point B.

This makes you a storage and movement (warehouse and transportation) business. Your differentiators will be how easy and fast you can deliver whatever goods there are. Your customers are people who need to move all kinds of groceries, whether on the producer side or consumer side. You don't care. You're making your bucks on volume.

Let's say that instead of just trucking, now you are selling doughnuts. You paste a big sign on the side of your truck that says "Doughnuts!" You don't make the doughnuts, you just get them to people.

This puts you in the distribution business. This is much different than the trucking business. In this business, people care about quality of product and whether or not you're delivering the right kinds of doughnuts to the right people. Your ability to find the right doughnut and get it to the right person is what is going to make your business work (or not) Everything you do should be based around targeted quality delivery to the appropriate recipient. Volume doesn't matter as much any more. Targeted delivery does. You're not just hauling groceries from point A to point B, you're figuring out which exact thing needs to be where at what exact time. Much tougher (and potentially more profitable) problem.

But they're completely different business models, with different customers and different drivers.

It's just an analogy, of course. I hope that made my point clearer. I think you guys are in for a wild ride if you can get the details worked out.

My main goal right now is to bridge the technical gap. So in your analogy, I would be the trucking service, but perhaps with special features like refrigerated trucks specifically for the grocery industry.

So yes, we aren't acting as a distributor, we're simply providing the tools to make self-distribution via the Internet more attractive, and with some features to help marketing, the other big challenge, to be more easily overcome by an indie. And with Internet, marketing is made significantly easier.

My proposition is if we make it technically easy for films to take advantage of the benefits of digital self distribution, then good films will shift over to the new method. Then when they shift there will be competitive content for a marketplace. Until then, we can profit and sustain the service on those making the digital self distribution transition by focusing on charging publishers.

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