Video conferencing business

[viking]

I would like to throw this idea out to everyone and your feedback is appreciated.

Without going into too much detail…..

A buddy of mine, who already owns a small flower delivery service in SPB, (an ex UK lawyer who decided he rather work there) and I are seriously considering opening up a video conferencing service in SPB.

I work in this industry and have access to some high end, professional type of equipment, so we are not talking web cams here. To get things started we have the option of using the living room of his flat to keep costs down or going for a small office environment perhaps a few metro stops from city central. We can get a good high speed connection and people to work the service. We have done the financials and they look promising.

The original concept was the guy over here (wherever that may be) use this service to personal speak with the RW he wants to connect to. This way he knows that the photos are real, she is real, and helps a lot in determining if she is at least who she claims. Her honesty is another matter of course. Equally, she can make sure that the man who claims to be 45 is not really 115. Could save a ton of money in travel costs. Then we have the guy who has met his dream, but can’t get back there all the time. He can now speak to her ‘in person’ maybe once a week and sort of take the angst out of the relationship. And there is the daughter who wants to talk to her mother, the grandson who wants to see his ‘babushka” (did I spell that right?) and all other sort of possibilities including some corporate types who might need it for strictly business reasons.

Since we would not be an agency promoting our own database, we can be a little more rounded in promoting business.

I’m looking at about $50 per 30 minutes, which is keeping with some of the other web sites out there. And yes, I think competition good. It’s all in the marketing and we have some ideas about this also.

Right now we would be strictly SPB and surrounding areas based. We feel the women would not have a major issue traveling 30 minutes or so to come to our location or maybe even more, depending on circumstances.

So, would you use a service like this? Why?  Or, why not? Thoughts?

And thanks for the hopefully positive feedback

Viking

[SANDRO43]

Viking, yours sounds like a good idea. Personally, if I had an interesting prospect in the SPB area and she had no PC with webcam of her own, I would use your service. Would this be free for the local girls, or would you charge them something, too ?

[viking]

There is no intention to charge the girls.

[andrewfi]

Apart from the quality issues what would make this service a 'standout' above a local internet cafe providing video and sound access at mcuh lower cost and without travel?

I can understand why a man might not mind paying, but why might the women see the benefit?

Also, if you are doing this in SPb, a radius of 30 minutes travel time, on public transport, from one non-central area to another, would not get you far into the suburbs. Your audience might be smaller than you think, if your marketing research has showed this to be the effecitve limit of your market.

[SANDRO43]

I can understand why a man might not mind paying, but why might the women see the benefit?

I would venture : because the service is allegedly free for them (as opposed to an Internet Café), and their only expenses possibly deriving from travel to the intended location ?

[BC]

ok.. so the girl is sitting in a nice professional high end studio broadcasting hdtv.. and the guy is in his home with a plain old webcam?

I could think of some pretty good ideas to setup a neat virtual date but both would have to be in a studio..

Something doesn't 'jive'.

[viking]

Some good questions.

Andrewfin...In our research, most women would not mind a 30 minute 'commute' every so often. Also, since we can schedule the conference at will, they can do it when they are in the area for other reasons, so as not to have to make a special trip unless of course the guy is someone they really want to talk to, then even an hour is not out of the question. On the opposite side, if the woman can't even make it out of bed to see her 'beloved' then that might send a message to the guy to move on. Yes, we didn't make any money but we did do a service for someone. Also, there are business opportunities as well.

BC.. Yes, the man would benefit from seeing a full screen studio quality image. The woman only his webcam. But you may be accustomed to web cams on places like yahoo, or maybe ICQ.  These services offer video but it is very shaky and poor quality. A webcam can produce a pretty decent full screen image as well (better in half screen) over a different service. For example, my company offers a free 30 day download of a very high end software that produces excellent results with a webcam over the public network, which is where we will be operating.  For $150 the guy can own it forever. Depends on what he wants to do. If I had a fiancee over there and wanting to see her every week, and she me, I think this is a fairly inexpensive way to go. $50 for half an hour would be $200 a month and maybe we can offer a volume discount or something similiar.