Wanting opinions here please

You serious?

Setting up a facebook clone certainly is not a winning idea - look at the money and user base you're competing with.

The only 2 ways to go would be:
- have a really interesting new idea.
- target a specific niche of people

Just my 2 cents...

Ralf

Hi Angela,

Welcome to Warrior Forums first off.

I'd make it very niche oriented as there are tons of social media sites, personally I liked the name "Myspace" it seemed to fit but look what has happened to it now.

Facebook could be improved upon greatly. But having a specific niche with a lot of good keyword traffic you could be able to gain some market share on it.

Get some good keywords, graphics and a good format(site). I've been thinking about this too.

Hope this helps but without going into details I think this is the best most could do for you. I totally understand about giving up too many details too.

Most people here will be loathe to discourage you.

Most people here will also be inclined to tell you that there are probably millions who feel like you do, and with the release of "The Social Network", there will be millions more by next week.

My #1 bit of advice is to develop a solid & valuable USP before spending a dime.

If you understand going in that it will involve a lot of hard work, certainly. Just make sure that you have something worthwhile to offer, and more particularly, something that will set you apart from the crowd.

Such an endeavor can be successful, certainly, and there are a number of products than can make your job easier, such as PHP Fox (a Facebook clone script).

Go for it.

Good luck.

Ben

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero

I agree on going very niche and creating a unique selling point that will differentiate you from the other sites. Communicate the niche and the differentiating factor well. Also, it may take a while for this venture to take off unless you create a good viral campaign, but keep on going -- if the idea is well thought out.

Are you a developer? If you are and you have something new and unique to add to the social media equation - plus no immediate need to earn any money from the site for a couple of years - then great! Fantastic!

If all you intend to do is use a FaceBook clone script, then you will need to have a tremendous amount of funds to advertise and promote your copy of FaceBook in the real world media, in order to gain any interest what so ever.

There have been eBay clones around for years. Name one auction site that is bothering eBay's market share? There isn't one.

Invest your time and dosh carefully.

Angela,

The fact is, nobody knows what's coming as far as social media is concerned. YouTube started out as just a couple of guys who created a video sharing site. Once people with big pockets saw that site, snatched it up and made it the site it is today, with the second largest search engine next to Google!

Social networking is still fairly new, and an innovative idea, even if it comes from one person, needs only to be noticed by the right person for that idea to truly take off.

I say take a shot. Most people who start online businesses do what everyone else is doing, and they wonder why they don't make money. That's because the online business world is saturated with copycats who try to do things too quickly. Eventually, techniques that used to work beautifully no longer do, and it's because there are too many people using those same techniques.

The point is, take a shot. Try something new. Don't let anyone tell you different. What if someone told Bill Gates, "Windows? That will never work!" Even if he did steal his idea from Apple, he would've never believed how far he'd get.

Just my $.02. If you have something new to offer, unleash it to the world. You never know when you have the next 'big' thing people log onto everyday like Facebook.

Then maybe they'll make a movie about you and how you 'got started'.

Wow. Some really great food for thought here guys. Thanks so much. Keep it coming. We have some big ideas, just researching and planning. Wanted to see what everyone that is into this online world thought. A few people have told us we're off our rockers lmao. But as Creative Content says "You never know when you have the next'big' thing people log onto everyday like Facebook." So we're really considering this, we have a few ideas for unique niches to make the site of interest too.

Do you really believe that Facebook success was about the domain name?

Whatever the domain is, it means absolutely nothing in comparison to what all does it take to build a successful social media site!