The high traffic is preventing me from entering an idea of mine. The problem is one I personally experience: I don't have time to archive and manage all of the content I want to have digitized.
Mass-media conversion service:
Send in DVDs, CDs, tapes, records, hard drives, iPods, photos, documents, books, (almost anything), to have digitized. Make all digitized content browsable on a web interface.
Allow multiple data export methods such as web availability, as well as hard-drive send-in/purchase. Make data as accessible as possible. Think of the service like Earth Class Mail for digital archives.
How much do people want it? For people to use your new service, they would have to:
- find you online, shop around to find the best service
- trust an unknown startup with their data
- pay a fair price
- put their media in a box, put stamps on it, put it in the mail
- keep track of an account & password
Although you say you want it yourself, I gather you haven't even done step 1 (there are several such services already). So find out how many people really want this thing so badly that they'll do all the steps. If those people exist, they'll be doing some painful version of it today.
Yes, with all these barriers to entry, I think people will still want it. I would be happy to pack up my tapes and disks and put stamps on a package if I knew I would never see it again and my memories are safe.
What services are out there that do this? I can only find a handfull of conversion companies, but none which offer online access. These services seem to specialize on either video or audio, but what about both? What about documents or arbitrary digital media which I would like to consolidate?
And yes, I would trust a trendy startup with this task, much like I decided to trust Dropbox about 5 years ago. I doubt I am the only one who could be convinced with a nice website and a decent video.
Mass-media conversion service:
Send in DVDs, CDs, tapes, records, hard drives, iPods, photos, documents, books, (almost anything), to have digitized. Make all digitized content browsable on a web interface.
Allow multiple data export methods such as web availability, as well as hard-drive send-in/purchase. Make data as accessible as possible. Think of the service like Earth Class Mail for digital archives.