Looking to start a social networking site - can any of you help design?

Lysander

Lysander

Lysander

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As title, really. A good friend of mine has an idea for a networking site which he wants to get off the ground. The problem is neither of us know how to go about designing/hosting the thing. Some of you may say that networking is getting passé, but I like this concept, it's a nice twist on things.

Is anyone here good enough to do it? Failing that, pointing us in the right direction would be helpful.
 
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If the idea of your friend has you will be able to either;

A) Do it between the two of you.
B) Pay for a professional (If you think it will take off)

Sorry can't personally offer much help but I don't think anyone would do it for free.
 
You could try those Designer For Hire sites but would get something legal in writing first if the idea is a good one.....look what Mr Facebook was supposed to have done when told an idea.
 
It depends on the complexity of the functionality you want. You may require more than a designer.
 
Your need a web developer / Designer (A good one as has to look pleasing to the eye) and they wont be cheap as something complex like a networking site will take time to make and most people wont accept the job unless they have a team of developers and your want a written contract or something like Hammer100 says.. your also want a dedicated server and then in future more if the site kicks off and they are costly.
 
I was going to do this a while ago but google announced theirs a few weeks later. I would be very careful about sinking too much time into it myself. Facebook has a lot of problems but it sounds like the google social networking will rectify most of them.
 
The biggest issue I have with facebook is its simplification of peoples different friendship groups. I want to have a friends group, hobbies group, family group and co-workers group and be able to control which content is visible to each of them, which groups people are in etc.

I don't like the way facebook is so cluttered and full of crap; the main thing that gets people to signup with facebook is having all their friends there, not all the rubbish games etc.

More geo-location integration allowing you to share what you do and where you do it. Share this information with certain groups of contacts. For example, say you were going back to your hometown for a weekend you could set up an event that would allow people to see you are coming to town and update them with where you are etc so they can join you on a night out etc.

Rather than the event organiser setting up an event and posting it to certain people, they say if they are accepting the invite etc, you would just set up that event, any friends that have access to the event would just see it and could subscribe to it and they would receive updates as to where you are when you are in town if you have a smartphone etc.

Basically focus on useful functionality rather than pointless time wasting things which seems to be a large part of facebook now.

Edit: Just saw about circles, tempted to disbelieve it as its from the metro but if its on googles twitter then its probably correct. Still stand by my statement that facebook is not that great though. Keep going OP!
 
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atmax1 said:
Your need a web developer / Designer (A good one as has to look pleasing to the eye) and they wont be cheap as something complex like a networking site will take time to make and most people wont accept the job unless they have a team of developers and your want a written contract or something like Hammer100 says.. your also want a dedicated server and then in future more if the site kicks off and they are costly.
Click to expand...

Thanks, very useful. Any idea at all of what kind of costs we'd be looking at?

fez said:
Basically focus on useful functionality rather than pointless time wasting things which seems to be a large part of facebook now.
Click to expand...

That's certainly the idea for now. It would be lot more practical.
 
Creating a project like this and paying someone to do it is a big task.

Approaching a web development company with an idea and getting them to develop it is going to be as much a full time job for you developing requirements and signing off on functionality as it is for them to actually create it.

I'd estimate costs to be in the region of thousands (if not tens of thousands) of pounds for project specification, development, testing and advertising.

I've emailed your trust a company I've worked with in the past that are capable of developing this type of thing if your serious about it.
 
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Many have tried Social Networking Sites. Few last more than 1 year as interest fades.

There are some scripts around that you might be able to get themed, Boonex Dolphin springs to mind or PHPFox. If it's outside a generic install then you'll need a developer/designer.

A custom build Social Networking Site > many thousands of pounds to even get started.
 
RoyMi6 is right your looking at tens of thousands and I don't know if your be able to beat facebook, they have problems yeh but they are working on them and facebook is built to be able to expand.. but you never know you maybe able to beat it if it truly is a good idea, site works well and looks good.

I would ask around getting round about quotes from different places, and see what they say..
 
No one is going to "beat" Facebook now. That opportunity has been realised. Even now Google recognises the mass and momentum it has, with their only option to embrace.

There are, of course, plenty of new opportunities for variations on a theme.

Look at Twitter. In all premises a very simple and limited version of status updates. Yet it's got a huge following. Just goes to show its not all about mass functionality.
 
Emailed your trust with the contact details Mr Pancakes. Links on the left hand side...

Anyway, you'll also need to consider your business model. If you're looking for a site to support hundreds of thousands of users then you're going to be paying a premium for hosting (with fail over and backup) and bandwidth.

How are you going to support these costs? You're going to find it hard to charge people to sign up so it's more than likely going to be through advertising which can have varying success.

Also think about the precautions you're going to have to take for storing personal data. Deadline with freedom of information requests etc. If you start making money through the site is your current job going to allow you to pursue both at the same time?

Not saying it's not possible just voicing my concerns, like everyone else, so your next post isn't "I'm broke and all I got was this stupid website" :)
 
I wouldn't even dream of taking on a task like this unless I had a team working on it.

Oh interesting fact which some of you may not know is that facebook runs on hip-hop which compiles php down to C++. which gives it a 2x speedup.
 
How about starting your own internet auction site? Or search engine?
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