Social Networking site

11 years ago

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laurencewins

11 years ago

I would wonder why you would want to start a new one when you have huge competition from the big ones already.

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Mrnace 11 years ago

Originally Posted by laurencewins

I would wonder why you would want to start a new one when you have huge competition from the big ones already.

I'll just give up then right?

Competition is important to any business. And if it targeted a specific niche, rather than everything like the big one did. then there is nothing wrong with at least testing the waters and seeing how it goes.

I don't expect to be as big as facebook or myspace or whoever.

did pepsi worry about coca cola. did virgin airways worry about British Airways or American Airline or qantas or emirates, did adidas worry about nike? NO!!!

They just got on with it and tried to make their own product or service the best IT could be.
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IMDESTROYER Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by laurencewins

I would wonder why you would want to start a new one when you have huge competition from the big ones already.

because his ambition is bigger than yours.
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- mtfresco 11 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by IMDESTROYER
  
  because his ambition is bigger than yours.
  
  Yes his ambition is bigger but as we all know for a social network he must have a dedicated team and millions of dollars
  
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amcg 11 years ago

Originally Posted by laurencewins

I would wonder why you would want to start a new one when you have huge competition from the big ones already.

Exactly, though FB wasn't exactly the first social network. Still, good luck monetizing (advertising) one without scale, just look at MySpace.
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Istvan Horvath

11 years ago

I saw in another thread you were contemplating doing it with WP. Till now I wasn't sure what you meant by "social networking site" (sorry, people, usually, use all kind of inadequate words, when asking questions around here), so I didn't reply.

However, for anything REAL social type of site... WP is not the right tool. There are specific scripts out there for exactly that purpose: to have a specific (targeted) social site.
This one is even free: Elgg - Open Source Social Networking Engine.

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Mrnace

11 years ago

thanks islam,

I have just purchase a theme from theme forrest that is wp and buddypress ready.

Can it be uploaded to Elgg instead. if you do think its better?

Thanks
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Istvan Horvath 11 years ago

Originally Posted by Mrnace

thanks islam,

I have just purchase a theme from theme forrest that is wp and buddypress ready.

Can it be uploaded to Elgg instead. if you do think its better?

I hate when people are too lazy to read and spell my name correctly

NO you cannot. Elgg has nothing to do with WP and related products.

Good luck.
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Mubeenyaqoob 10 years ago

I am searching. i will tell you later.
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Mrnace

11 years ago

Never mind then. Thanks for the info.

Sorry I got your name wrong.

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curationsoft

11 years ago

please elaborate, i'm a bit confused if you're referring to social networking site marketing or owning or managing social network website.

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Istvan Horvath 11 years ago

Originally Posted by curationsoft

please elaborate, i'm a bit confused if you're referring to social networking site marketing or owning or managing social network website.

Then next time read the whole thread before replying... to avoid the confusion.

(you will be even more confused when your non-contributing, nonsense posts disappear from threads)
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blackli0n

11 years ago

I've worked on one before and encountered many obstacles along the way.

The common pitfalls are:
- not having mock-ups BEFORE you start the programming process - you should have wireframes and everything. the better your mock-ups, the smoother the programming stage. or else you'll be stuck at every point when deciding on all the small details (e.g. align left vs align center, round corners vs sharp corners, line-height for font, etc, etc, etc). for this reason, many development companies will only start the programming process once you have picture perfect mock-ups.
- speed - it's common for everything to bog down once you add and hack in all the extra unique features you thought of. this is a big problem and of the main reasons why people are stuck between custom-coding vs using a script that's already available
- not using a beta version - too many entrepreneurs (ESPECIALLY FIRST-TIMERS) like to give the final product with every feature available. this delays the launch date because nothing is ever perfect and nothing is ever finished. it's better to launch a beta with only the core features to test the market first and then evolve the site as your demographic grows and you learn more about what they really want. this not only saves time and money but makes you more successful in the long-run because you're taking feedback from your users
- no marketing budget - too many spend all their budget in development and have nothing left for marketing. I would say marketing is one of the hardest parts about growing a community especially if you're not already a strong figure in the general community and well networked with other big people. you need some kind of social influence to become a community leader and if you don't have it, you'll need tons of marketing

There are so many other things but these are the main ones I can think of.

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Mrnace

11 years ago

Originally Posted by blackli0n

I've worked on one before and encountered many obstacles along the way.

The common pitfalls are:
- not having mock-ups BEFORE you start the programming process - you should have wireframes and everything. the better your mock-ups, the smoother the programming stage. or else you'll be stuck at every point when deciding on all the small details (e.g. align left vs align center, round corners vs sharp corners, line-height for font, etc, etc, etc). for this reason, many development companies will only start the programming process once you have picture perfect mock-ups.
- speed - it's common for everything to bog down once you add and hack in all the extra unique features you thought of. this is a big problem and of the main reasons why people are stuck between custom-coding vs using a script that's already available
- not using a beta version - too many entrepreneurs (ESPECIALLY FIRST-TIMERS) like to give the final product with every feature available. this delays the launch date because nothing is ever perfect and nothing is ever finished. it's better to launch a beta with only the core features to test the market first and then evolve the site as your demographic grows and you learn more about what they really want. this not only saves time and money but makes you more successful in the long-run because you're taking feedback from your users
- no marketing budget - too many spend all their budget in development and have nothing left for marketing. I would say marketing is one of the hardest parts about growing a community especially if you're not already a strong figure in the general community and well networked with other big people. you need some kind of social influence to become a community leader and if you don't have it, you'll need tons of marketing

There are so many other things but these are the main ones I can think of.

yeah. I have not done any mock ups yet. I am gonna take me time on this. I have never done this process before, (doing it all myself). so its best to make sure I get everything done as best it can be.

I will load paint up and have a play around in there, then hope I can translate it to the actual theme.

I am doing it this way so that I can learn as much as I can from it, with out it costing a fortune. Massive learning curve I reckon.

and particuler plugins you guys can suggest for when I am ready to install and activate them? I have been told about s2member, which I think I will use.

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coffeeguy

11 years ago

I launched mine with a developers script. There were alot of features that were not needed for my site so i coded out many features. Id say the best thing to do is... figure out what paths are important for your niche. Will u need groups? Photo gallery? Do you want a gifting system. Id say get a whiteboad- compare your site needs to other social sites that already exist. What will set you apart from them? Here's my site. Its finally done. I built mine around my name. Couple Coffee. "Brew a relationship" So i have a coffee table for quick profile links. I have a coffee filter which is used for finding users etc. Find your niche, build a strong concept and connect the dots. Couple Coffee login using "demo" as the username and password to view the whole site. My site is targeted for locals in my area for now until it grows...then ill open more doors. I have an article about people telling you not to launch a product/service/site because of competition. And im completely for following a vision. Dont listen to the pessimistic. But also be a realist when planning your venture.

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jchan617

11 years ago

Originally Posted by coffeeguy

I launched mine with a developers script. There were alot of features that were not needed for my site so i coded out many features. Id say the best thing to do is... figure out what paths are important for your niche. Will u need groups? Photo gallery? Do you want a gifting system. Id say get a whiteboad- compare your site needs to other social sites that already exist. What will set you apart from them? Here's my site. Its finally done. I built mine around my name. Couple Coffee. "Brew a relationship" So i have a coffee table for quick profile links. I have a coffee filter which is used for finding users etc. Find your niche, build a strong concept and connect the dots. Couple Coffee login using "demo" as the username and password to view the whole site. My site is targeted for locals in my area for now until it grows...then ill open more doors. I have an article about people telling you not to launch a product/service/site because of competition. And im completely for following a vision. Dont listen to the pessimistic. But also be a realist when planning your venture.

The Coffee site looks great! Good job!
I tried all the social networking software and no one is going to grow into the "next facebook" without a lot of developer mods and fixes. Facebook has millions of engineers working on their platform daily to make sure it works and gets upgrades. If you want to build the next facebook, you need to have solid development skills if you buy an off-the-shelf product and expect it to work or to customize it.
Buddypress is not a quick fix. There is a lot of spam.
PHPfox looks kinda ugly, but its functions mostly work. Social networking sites have a lot of functions - forums, photo galleries, blogs, etc. that you might not even want.
If you want to build a social network - you should probally go with something simple first. Jamming all the functionality to make it look like myspace just turns off people.

As for social networking, I think the most solid platforms out there are forum software like vBulletin. I also looked into dating sites - but most of those are buggy as well.

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Speiron

11 years ago

Originally Posted by coffeeguy

I launched mine with a developers script. There were alot of features that were not needed for my site so i coded out many features. Id say the best thing to do is... figure out what paths are important for your niche. Will u need groups? Photo gallery? Do you want a gifting system. Id say get a whiteboad- compare your site needs to other social sites that already exist. What will set you apart from them? Here's my site. Its finally done. I built mine around my name. Couple Coffee. "Brew a relationship" So i have a coffee table for quick profile links. I have a coffee filter which is used for finding users etc. Find your niche, build a strong concept and connect the dots. Couple Coffee login using "demo" as the username and password to view the whole site. My site is targeted for locals in my area for now until it grows...then ill open more doors. I have an article about people telling you not to launch a product/service/site because of competition. And im completely for following a vision. Dont listen to the pessimistic. But also be a realist when planning your venture.

Your site works with jomsocial component for joomla

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Dee Syed

11 years ago

Most of the work in your social networking site needs to go down to analysis - a lot of people will jump in straight away with a "solution" - especially clients - saying that they need a BuddyPress install with BBPress and Group forums. The thing to do with all this is step back and consider:

- What's your "definition" of social network. E.g is it like Facebook - i.e. we're looking at BuddyPress, is it like Tumblr - looking at multisite and so on. So you need to be careful in using the generic term "social network" which could techically even apply to this forum

- Choose your plugins carefully - not all plugins play well with Multisite, BuddyPress or a combination or both with something else. You need to make sure that aspect works.

- Invest in some technology from guys who specialise in MultiSite (not naming names, but they're pretty obvious). Their plugins are kind of "guaranteed" to work - although your results will depend on your configuration as I've found.

- Last but not least - Scaling and capacity!! <- Do NOT underestimate the requirements from a hosting and infrastructure point of view. Get something small and ambitious (mid-range VPS) that you can easily scale up and go dedicated when your network takes off. If you plan on being really big, start thinking about separating your database and WordPress tiers onto separate servers. There are a lot of good techs out there who can do this forward planning for you.

Good luck with your site,
Dee

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ShutupAndEarn

11 years ago

If you don't want to break the bank on doing custom programing, try the BuddyPress Wordpress plugin.

You can also check our Theme Forest for some BuddyPress compatible themes. You can seriously get a good looking social site up for under $100 (including a domain name) and once you start getting some positive feedback then look into doing something more customized for V2....

Just my 2 cents.

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Mrnace

11 years ago

Thanks guys.

For a quick update, I have bought a theme from themeforrest that is wordpress and buddypress ready.

I have also got hosting and domain set up and ready to start the work.

I need to set up my cpanel, install to wordpress with the right plugins, edit the theme for it to look as I want it, then go live.

The main thing I am worried about is the edit. I have never done this before in my entire existence and will be learning from scratch through youtube vids and other sources.

Even the most basic stuff I don't know what to do, setting it all up at my hosting and cpanel is the next step, then I'll upload and conect it to wordpress then do the edits.

I need to right stuff down as I do it.

My brain aches at the thought of all the work I need to do.

LOL

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flowerz

11 years ago

If you are smart you will listen to blackli0n. He answered the most important aspects when starting a social / any other page.

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amcg

11 years ago

I think the best CMS, if you're wanting a framework, is actually Drupal. It's got some really nice social feature e.g forums, polls that are basically 'content types' meaning as a developer/administrator, it's easy to moderate.

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Mrnace

11 years ago

yeah, I bought the theme, thinking it will be easier for me. but it will still be a ton of work.

I have literally starting learning html today and will see about doing it myself from scratch and then outsource any work that i am personally unable to do and to sort out any issues from my code.

The site will start simple and basic and will slowly build as the site gets more popular and starts making enough money.

I will take my time on it making sure everything is as i want it.

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jchan617

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Mrnace

yeah, I bought the theme, thinking it will be easier for me. but it will still be a ton of work.

I have literally starting learning html today and will see about doing it myself from scratch and then outsource any work that i am personally unable to do and to sort out any issues from my code.

The site will start simple and basic and will slowly build as the site gets more popular and starts making enough money.

I will take my time on it making sure everything is as i want it.

It will be extremely difficult for you to succeed if you don't have marketing or coding experience. But even building a prototype will be a good learning experience for the next month. If you stick with it for 9 months, then it might pick up steam, but the first 6-9 months will suck. You will need to extremely target what type of customer you want to join your site and market to those people and give them a reason to join your community.

After 2 months, with no revenue, you'll just become another affiliate blogger like the rest of us who need some revenue.

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Mrnace

11 years ago

Originally Posted by jchan617

It will be extremely difficult for you to succeed if you don't have marketing or coding experience. But even building a prototype will be a good learning experience for the next month. If you stick with it for 9 months, then it might pick up steam, but the first 6-9 months will suck. You will need to extremely target what type of customer you want to join your site and market to those people and give them a reason to join your community.

After 2 months, with no revenue, you'll just become another affiliate blogger like the rest of us who need some revenue.

I am starting to learn the coding on codeacademy.com, in hope it will give my something to work with to get it started, there is no rush with this either, I hope I can get it up and running properly in a couple of months, and then learn as I go.

Its probably stupid of my to do a social networking site as my first site, it seems a liitle too complicated for a first site, I may do more simple sites first, like a blog or something to get me used to coding, marketing and any other stuff that I'll need to learn.

At least with a blog I can build an online presence and eventually use it to drive people to my main site.

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veecreate

11 years ago

A social networking service is a platform to build social networks or social relations among people who, for example, share interests, activities, backgrounds, or real-life connections. A social network service consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web-based and provide means for users to interact over the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging.

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allegandro

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Mrnace

Has anybody here worked on one before?

As a Web developer/designer?

What are the pitfalls you cam across and what is the best way to go about it?

Hi 3 years ago I had the same plan, let's build my own social network, so I start writing what I wanted to have differently. A technical business plan of 63 pages was the result.
After writing I started to look for money, needed around 150.000$, raised 60.000. So with a too small budget I went to do it. After one year programming we went to early online: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...blic-soon.html
It went bad, but we kept going on, the results where good after one year, Google loved use: http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...t-website.html
Now, 3 years after the first idea's we almost are ready to make money, and we are programming the the last bit. Off course there is a lot to do, especially on the design part. But thanks to the feedback on this forum: http://www.warriorforum.com/website-...gn-please.html we know what to do and where to focus on.

I'm having the best time of my live, but remember this, if you go for it, forget about everything else for the next 5 years.