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Pre-Built Scripts VS. Outsource Scripts???

by bbminded
7 replies
Lets say for example you want a niche social networking website. Now you can obviously choose from many pre-built scripts or post a job on a freelance website directory.

What i would like to know is what everyone thinks is the best route to go assuming you have no knowledge of code and building a website.

Pre-built(ex. ning,socialgo,socialengine etc) or hire a freelance?
Pro's and Con's??

Also, if you answered Freelance, what advice do you give to someone who has never hired someone to make a website for them?? thanks
#outsource #prebuilt #scripts
  • Profile picture of the author TheRichJerksNet
    It is not very hard to start a social media site but there are a few things to be aware of...

    1. Getting that social media site off the ground will take a great deal of work, marketing, money, and a very low stress level.

    2. There are some junk scripts online that are open source code but honestly if you want a social media site you are best to have it custom coded. Not only due to security reasons but due to the fact you will get exactly what you want (hiring the right developer that is)

    3. Depending upon what you want to create you really need to have a dedicated server. I have 2 of them to run all my sites and pay $300+ a month for hosting. I know you will get many opinions on this so let me state it now.. VPS (Virtual Private Servers) are junk for running sites, a real proven hosting company such as Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, and Dedicated Servers - Website Hosting w/ cPanel - HostGator has dedicated servers for $174 a month. The reason why you would need dedicated is because you would need a server that can handle the traffic and bandwidth usage..

    4. You will need some staff to moderate the social platform depending upon if you have forums, blogs, and etc.. Some of this can be automative but most of it would need to be monitored due to spammers that wish to use your site as a advertising billboard.

    5. A coder, you need to get someone and get to know them forget freelance sites (sorry to any freelancer but being honest) they are full of copy and paste coders that use free code. There is a for hire section right here at the forum. Go look around, talk to people and get to know someone. Give them a small job $50 or so and see if they can really do what they claim. Build a relationship with this person.

    So if you have about $10,000 to get your site started then you are good to go - other than that, you can register a domain name for a few dollars.

    James
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    • Profile picture of the author bbminded
      Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet View Post

      It is not very hard to start a social media site but there are a few things to be aware of...

      1. Getting that social media site off the ground will take a great deal of work, marketing, money, and a very low stress level.

      2. There are some junk scripts online that are open source code but honestly if you want a social media site you are best to have it custom coded. Not only due to security reasons but due to the fact you will get exactly what you want (hiring the right developer that is)

      3. Depending upon what you want to create you really need to have a dedicated server. I have 2 of them to run all my sites and pay $300+ a month for hosting. I know you will get many opinions on this so let me state it now.. VPS (Virtual Private Servers) are junk for running sites, a real proven hosting company such as Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, and Dedicated Servers - Website Hosting w/ cPanel - HostGator has dedicated servers for $174 a month. The reason why you would need dedicated is because you would need a server that can handle the traffic and bandwidth usage..

      4. You will need some staff to moderate the social platform depending upon if you have forums, blogs, and etc.. Some of this can be automative but most of it would need to be monitored due to spammers that wish to use your site as a advertising billboard.

      5. A coder, you need to get someone and get to know them forget freelance sites (sorry to any freelancer but being honest) they are full of copy and paste coders that use free code. There is a for hire section right here at the forum. Go look around, talk to people and get to know someone. Give them a small job $50 or so and see if they can really do what they claim. Build a relationship with this person.

      So if you have about $10,000 to get your site started then you are good to go - other than that, you can register a domain name for a few dollars.

      James
      thanks....lots of very good advice. You even touched on hosting which i also was not very sure about!!! I thought going the custom code route was probably the better way. But $10,000.00 to get one going OUCH! Even if you outsourced to india?? If you had to pick just one or two pre-built scripts which would you choose??
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      • Profile picture of the author TheRichJerksNet
        Originally Posted by bbminded View Post

        thanks....lots of very good advice. You even touched on hosting which i also was not very sure about!!! I thought going the custom code route was probably the better way. But $10,000.00 to get one going OUCH! Even if you outsourced to india?? If you had to pick just one or two pre-built scripts which would you choose??
        I would pick none.. I would only go custom.. No offense to anyone but I would not hire a "coder" from india either. As I said build a relationship with someone and you will be far better off...

        James
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  • Profile picture of the author intromaster
    I was checking out social media scripts for my brother about a month ago. I told him about this one I found.

    Dolphin - it's looks really professional too. Be sure to check out the online demo to make sure it fits your needs, though

    Dolphin :: Smart Community Builder :: Free Software
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    • Profile picture of the author bbminded
      Originally Posted by intromaster View Post

      I was checking out social media scripts for my brother about a month ago. I told him about this one I found.

      Dolphin - it's looks really professional too. Be sure to check out the online demo to make sure it fits your needs, though

      Dolphin :: Smart Community Builder :: Free Software
      Yes i have seen and read up on it. Got alot of bad reviews though. alot of bugs. The sales page does look good though. except the $1,000.00 price tag to remove the branding. of all the pre-built scripts the one i found that i like the most and has got the best reviews is socialengine. its still a bit pricey after buying all the addons but half of what dolphin is!
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  • Profile picture of the author Ralf Skirr
    Given that a social networking site must have a ton of state of the art features (unless you want to add to the crappy ones) I would go for existing scripts.

    Creating one from scratch will cost quite some time and money.

    Especially if you're new to software development such a big script is not a good idea to start with for many reasons.

    Ralf
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  • Profile picture of the author JoeOFarrel
    as a a business analyst in software development, I can safely say that getting a complicated social networking site built from scratch will be brutal. if you have no experience in conceptual design, or explaining your requirements in a way a programmer understand it, forget.

    Go with an open source pre-built solution, and get that customized. It'll provide a good framework, your programmer will understand much better.
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