Help getting website built

rent_a_tent_3

Hi, I am taking the plunge and hauling myself into the 21st century by setting up an educational website.
Does anyone know how much I should be paying for a youtube type site but much smaller. Initially I thought that I would have a go myself but it's way beyond my scope.

I have come across a site that lets you post your requirments on it and web developers then bid to provide your site. Youtube type sites seem to be being built for about $1500.

http://www.getafreelancer.com/

Has anyone come across this? I guess that it is webdevelopers from across the globe hence the competetive bids.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks

Diminutive

Hi, i'm not sure about the going rates these days but I'd recommend looking at a site like hotscripts.com There's alot of pre written scripts on there that are available, sometimes its freeware, sometimes its you'll need to buy a license... but it can be a lot less. There is usually a built in install, that makes it quite easy to install on to your hosting. The hardest part is usually customising the look... the most popular scripts have templating systems, so you can either design your own template by customising the image files of another. you can also pay someone to make a template for you... which will usually be cheaper than asking them to write a whole website.

rent_a_tent_3

Thanks I'll hunt around this afternoon.

Wombat

What is it that is beyond your scope? You can design websites at different levels, either from scratch or using pre-existing templates that you can alter to fit your needs.

There are plenty of free templates on the Net which you may be able to edit for yourself. For example:

http://www.zymic.com/show_templates.php?id=1

http://www.oswd.org/designs/browse/

http://webdesign.about.com/od/websitetemplates/a/bl_layouts.htm

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/web-publishing/free-csshtml-template-roundup-039947.php

http://www.cssfill.com/

If you're completely new to website design then you may be flummoxed by how you go about editing these templates, but again there are free programs available that make this a lot easier for non-techies and budding designers.

Ask on here for help with the specific thing you're unsure about and I'll bet there's a simple answer.

Things to consider are:

How do I change these templates?

How do I get my website up on the Internet for public viewing?

Or maybe there's another area you're unsure about?

Diminutive

I'm guessing that its the backend that would prove the difficult part. I'm not sure what aspect of youtube it is that the OP is after, but if they want user accounts/authentication, user uploads, comments/ratings, general content to be displayed dynamically etc... they will need some form of scripted backend running from a database. very hard to script yourself unless you have vast knowledge of something like PHP and mysql.

Flexible_Friend

There are lots of FREE, open source software out there for Community based websites e.g. Dragonfly

http://www.cpgnuke.com/

Includes a photo gallery and forum.

Technical help and advice can always be found on their own forum.

http://www.cpgnuke.com/Forums.html

You just need a web host with PHP and a MySql database

rent_a_tent_3

I have been playing around trying to produce an educational site to upload clinical medical video to share and rate. I managed a basic page that to be frank wasn't very user friendly. The upload feature consisted of emailing me the video for me to then put on the site. It soon became apparent that this was time consuming and required lots of site updating. I have looked around and the from what I can understand it would require something like an mysql database to achieve this (not sure about how that works).
My problem here is that I have been seduced by youtubes functionality such as easy upload, easy rating systems. I will look at the links provided and see what I might be able to use.
Thanks again

Diminutive

Here is a commerical one, thats $99 for the standard or $199 for "pro"... its basically a youtube clone....
http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/64348.html

Not free, but cheaper than $1500.

Here's a whole list of them too...

http://www.hotscripts.com/search/15078631.html

rent_a_tent_3

Thanks for the above info' I have followed the link you provided and it seems perfect for my site.
Huge thankyou again.