How much does it cost to build a website?

[Tyler]

I am looking into having a social media based website built. I am not sure what all types of software and code it will need so if anyone can help with the software types and prices I would appreciate it! It will have "real time" updates available, live video feed, subscriptions, blogs, and a few other social media criteria. I appreciate any help!

[kuzuma]

you can make it free but starting from a scratch is hard as all hell because the hex programming is almost impossiple without proper education in media

[Valencia]

I recommend you go to Web Starts. You can get a free website there
it has everything you need to build and maintain your website. It includes
free hosting and a Web Starts web address. It's very easy to use.

[Jazka]

There are a few factors to take into account.

1. Who's going to be building the website. If you hire someone to build it for you, then it can become quite expensive. If you're willing to learn how to do it yourself, then you could save a lot of money. But if you're new to it, then that will take time.

2. You'll need to find a suitable hosting plan. This is a good one:
http://webcity.com.au/

I don't know all the software needed for what you want to do. But I know that, if you intend on doing it yourself, you can use Notepad++ to write the website (the actual coding, e.g. HTML/XHTML). You can download Notepad++ for free. I think you can also use other things like JavaScript and PHP in Notepad++ as well.

To upload it, you'd use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Filezilla is a good FTP program - you can download it free online as well.

If you're willing to design it yourself, you might be able to save a fair bit of money, but like I said - if you need to learn the stuff, you should take into account of the time it would take. But even for that, there are good online resources that you can refer to if you have trouble with things.

[dominate_01]

Hey,

Hmmm what I can tell you is that price wise there won't be a concrete number. Everything you mentioned you wanted for your site is feasible for a either a cheap price or for free with exception of "LIVE VIDEO." Streaming video live on a server is different than just allowing people to play videos you post. With a posted video all that's really happening is a person's browser request a saved video file from your server but with live video there is no definitive file size because data is being transmitted "live," not just to one user but several users at one time and it has to be in sync the whole way. You're going to actually have to hire a web developer who has network engineers working for their company to do a set up like that and it'll cost.

The only other alternative that's cheap but not even close to effective is to use some sort of conferencing software to stream a video from your home computer to the webserver. yahoo, aol and I think google have services you can use to do that and adobe as well, I think its called adobe connect. The video quality won't be very good and your viewers will have to have the software installed on their computer to use it cause tis commercial or licensed software but it works for cheap. If you buy a high enough quality webcam; some of the most expensive ones come with software that will allow you to do that. It all comes down to the strength of your camera, your computer and how good your servers are with your service provider because if your camera and computer are weak then things will come out on the other in lagging and out of sync and nobody will sit through it because it'll take forever to transmit but the better bridged your connections are (the higher quality the software, equipment and service) the more real time things will seem so the price is up to you.

Its like buying a wedding ring, either you want a knock out show stopper or a dud that just does the trick. The best web cams are usually around $80 - $100 and you'll probably need a upgraded version of the software that comes with them which may cost $20 - $30. Then you're looking at hosting for those kind of needs which may cost around $50 a month. You can't exactly use cheap hosting for the needs you require because you're going to have to need some customer support while you're running this monster. Then there's the site design which at minimum will cost you a few hundred bucks unless you or a friend builds it for you for free which won't happen cause thats a huge project and will take up all their time which is why you see a lot of high school kids doing this cause they have nothing but time!