internet video rental software
internet game rental software

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screenshots, faq, etc ...

Internet enabled video rental and game rental businesses as ecommerce ventures are often viewed as very costly startups in terms of the underlying software costs in both time and money.

This is primarily because every online rental business has found it necessary to create their own custom point of sale software that can handle their video rental or game rental operations. The required pos software to manage the unique and complex backend business operations and content management systems have just not been available as a packaged solution for online dvd media rental operations.

A conservative estimate of the minimum time and money investment requirements to complete the required internet based point of sale software would be nine months of development time at a cost of 400,000 dollars. Project management and production server hardware can add another 200,000 dollars.

That's over a half million dollars and nine months invested for an unproven video rental or game rental software platform before a site can signup the first subscriber. The sheer magnitude of the investment risk entailed in such rental ventures precludes all but a select few entities from entering the dvd media rental market.

MMS - THE 8% SOLUTION

platformlabs.com has greatly reduced the capital investment and risk of creating internet game rental and internet video rental sites with respect to the server side requirements. We provide a private label hosted application tailored to internet dvd rentals for a low percentage based fee covering all software, hardware and bandwidth costs. This highly scalable point of sale server based software application has been continuously production tested and improved for over three years.

In essence, all of the necessary server side technical infrastructure for the dvd or game rental service is provided and maintained by platformlabs.com for one low monthly cost that is paid as the site earns income from sales and rental subscription memberships. No long term contractual commitments are required. There are no franchise or affiliate fees payable. platformlabs.com is simply a supplier of technical services to the rental site.

This new approach makes entry into the online video rental or online game rental business almost risk free. Valuable time and money are freed up for the owners to expend on marketing and dvd or game acquisition.

The competitive advantage for new dvd media rental businesses using the platformlabs.com system are savings related to:

• time to market
• development cost
• maintenance cost
• bandwidth cost
• hardware cost
• initial capital investment
• technical staffing
• physical plant location

Beyond cost savings, the software has features designed to ensure the success of a dvd or game rental site by offering facilities that maximise the user experience of all user population segments that will be using it.

subscriber features

• member benefits
• rental list
• reminder list
• advanced search
• streaming video
• trading post
• password reminders
• email notifications

a number of these features are unique to the internet dvd rental market and are intended to maximise the stickiness factor of a video rental site or game rental site for both new users and existing subscribers

this stickiness of course translates to better membership signup conversion rates and less subscriber churn

a number of these features are structured to gain cost savings for the site or are additional revenue generators for the rental site

affiliate features

• multi-level payout
• campaign management
• recurring income
• multiple payment accounts
• realtime traffic statistics
• activity reports
• financial reports
• cross site payout eligibility

affiliates will welcome the opportunity to earn multi-level payouts from commission overrides on sub-affiliate commissions. these commissions are further enhanced by cross site payouts

affiliate sponsored traffic that crosses a rental site and qualifies as a signup on an associate rental site results in commissions paid to the affiliate, the affiliate's upstreams, and the rental site being crossed

all rental sites are master affiliates for all affiliates signed up in their affiliate programs. as master affiliates, that account also receives override income from affiliates. the rental site may choose to record these receipts as consolidated rental earnings or may choose to have them remitted to a separate account and accounted for separately.

this traffic spillover feature ties together all out-of-territory dvd and game rental sites to allow them to share traffic that would otherwise be wasted. this is an opportunity that is unique to video rentals and game rentals because of the need for physical presences in the served territory. for example, a dvd rental site in the United Kingdom looses nothing by sharing traffic with a dvd rental site in Australia or Canada

syndication features

• self registration
• real time statistics
• financial reports
• automated payments
• participation in pools by title

dvd video and game rental media acquisition costs can be significantly reduced by this syndication feature. it is designed to encourage individuals and businesses owning dvd video and game media content to place it with the site for managed rentals on a syndicated dvd media revenue pool basis.

each time a dvd media rental unit is rented by the site, the agreed upon charge is added to the revenue pool. at the end of each payment period, the dvd media rental revenue pool is paid out pro-rata to each revenue pool participant.

there are potentially significant tax benefits for individuals participating in such a program. since they are operating an active business, with risk of loss and opportunity for profit, income can be offset by related expenses even if a tax loss is results in a particular tax year.

a business starting off with one video or game dvd, with the intention of increasing the rental volume at a future date, could potentially expense, for example, an automobile used in game or video buying excursions, research trips to conventions, an internet connection, the computer used to check account status, a dvd player, a hdtv plasma screen to check dvd quality, both xbox and playstation game consoles, trade magazines, and home office expenses.

individual circumstances should be verified with qualified legal and accounting professionals.

owner features

• fully automated backend operations
• comprehensive management reports
• content purchasing analysis
• multi-location access
• integrated payment services
• free upgrades
• private news server
• buying services for content, supplies, equipment
• ongoing business support
• ongoing technical support
• shared traffic
• shared web content repository
• overrides on shared traffic
• central affiliate accounting
• pay as you go
• copy depth program

the backend point of sale software application is highly automated. all shipping, receiving, and inventory identification employs barcodes and scanners for speed and accuracy. multi-location accessibility means that management and operations can be located where they make the most sense. some sites may choose to use third party fulfillment in operating the physical side of the business.

an important advantage to entering the internet game, music and video rental businesses as a member of a larger group is the ability to share resources and information. many of the sharing features listed above would not be possible in a standalone effort.

platform features

• production tested
• microsoft based
• telco grade data centers
• compaq servers
• cisco networking equipment
• backups
• security
• monitoring

the pos application is engineered on enterprise class hardware and software that platformlabs.com has proven in production and used in other demanding applications for very large past and present clients. the current maximum continuous uptime recorded by independent third parties is 494 days. there have been no service interruptions exceeding 5 minutes in any 90 day period since June/2000.

bottomline

• $500.00 setup
• 8% of sales

other than the modest initial setup fee, everything is included for a low percentage fee paid on a monthly basis as site revenues are earned

business climate

In the latest Netflix SEC filing at EDGAR , the internet dvd movie rental giant, achieved a 78% annual growth rate in revenues to 270 million from 1.4 million paid dvd movie rental subscribers and 71 thousand free membership trials at December 31/2003. Revenue guidance is for fiscal 2004 revenues to grow by a further 70% to 460 million. At the same time, they estimate that their current market penetration is less than 3% of the dvd movie rental market. Gross margins are reported to be 45% and are expected to continue to be in the same range. 2003 technology expenditures were 17.8 million dollars, which is the same range of expense as in prior years. Monthly subscriber churn is approximately 5%. Additional Netflix company background can be found here.

As of October 2002, the home video market was estimated to be worth 25 billion dollars in the United States.

There are unconfirmed reports that the combined paid membership of the two leading internet adult dvd rental sites totals slightly over 200,000 members as at the end of 2003. This translates to approximately 60 million dollars in annual subscriber revenues for these two companies alone. There are no estimates of additional revenues attributable to conventional sales.

Industry publications estimate that the adult home video segment has an annual volume of an additional 25 billion dollars worldwide in 2004.

Internet game rental portals consistently report weekly gross rental revenues for the top ten game titles on XBOX and PLAYSTATION 2 at around 5 million dollars for any given week.

disclosure

principal officers and associates of platformlabs.com own a non-controlling passive interest in a dvd rental company servicing a specialty market segment, as well as providing technical and consulting services to said company.

classification

• remotely hosted internet video rental software
• remotely hosted internet movie rental software
• remotely hosted internet game rental software
• remotely hosted internet dvd rental software

information index

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