Questions about building a social networking site

Hi all,

Here's the thing: I'm about to build a social networking site with these initial characteristics:

1- There should be a blog maintained by me alone as admin and seen by all members. The fact that members can create their own blogs inside the site would be good, as well.

2- It has to have forum.

3- Members should be able to upload pictures, vids.

4- Others functionalities such as chat are not necessary.

5- It should be easy to maintain and install, since I'm not a technical person. I'm definitely going to learn all I need to be on top of it, but the easier the better (for example, I hear Drupal can be a pain in the a**)

6- It should be easy to expand by adding modules, plugins, etc. I hope to create a growing community, and I don't really know what I will be needing in a year's time. It should be flexible enough to fit my needs.

7- It should handle heavy traffic, since I expect (hope) this community to become pretty popular and active.

That's about it. If you have any suggestions at all, I'd be glad to hear them. Also, if you've had experience with any particular platform, please tell me about it. Right now, I'm heading towards Joomla with community builder, although Buddypress looks attractive due to its simplicity (although I feel it won't be good enough to handle the site in teh future).

Thanks

Just get a Ning.

Take a look at PHPFox and see the features.

Seems to tick all your boxes.

nitro909 and littleg2008, thanks a lot for your responses.

@nitro909: Thank you for your suggestion. I did consider Ning ( I still do; in fact, it was my first choice). Problem is that I'm looking for a solution that's self hosted and has a lot of room for growth. Not sure that a Ning community will be enough and I wouldn't want to upgrade or change platforms down the line, as it would be a pain in the a** and very disturbing for users.

@littleg2008: Thanks a lot for your suggestion. I checked phpfox and it certainly has everything I was looking for. Now, do you have any experience with it? How easy is it to install and maintain? Thanks a lot.

You could also check out Revou, looks incredible but $399 ..

SocialEngine will work. I just finished my first social networking site with it. SocialEngine and Phpfox were my final 2. Only reason I went with SE was it seemed to have a bigger community. If I decide to make another one, I might try out phpfox just to see how it is.

Thanks everyone. I don't really mind the price, particularly since I'm planning carry on with this particular project for years.

Both Revou and SE look very good. Thanks.

@Jiggsaw: how was your experience installing SE? How difficult was it?

No offense... but my 15 year designing/coding experienced, 6 figure income earning friend failed trying to make his own social network, I doubt you will be successful with it.

It's like trying to start up a store that sells a bit of everything but still nothing at the same time that is trying to compete with walmart. Don't waste your effort, trust me.

IMATA said:

Thanks everyone. I don't really mind the price, particularly since I'm planning carry on with this particular project for years.

Both Revou and SE look very good. Thanks.

Jiggsaw: how was your experience installing SE? How difficult was it?

Click to expand...

Not difficult at all. I set it up in about 2 weeks. I mean, if you can do a wordpress install then you can do this. Basically, same thing. Getting it configured is what took the most time. I only have about 12 users but I haven't even promoted it yet.

I really don't know what the poster above me is talking about. If your network is niche focused and you drive traffic to it, you'll be fine. Just like any other site. The only thing is that if it gets popular, you might need to upgrade your server. I look at things like that as "good problems".

i can only say to, even if you want to go, dont forget ot promote is with your friends first. family or ur community

Thank you all for your answers.

@likescoolaid: No offense taken. As jiggsaw mentioned below I'm only planning to build it as part of a bigger niche project, a platform where members can interact. I'm not going after Facebook or anything

@jiggsaw : Thanks a lot for your input. Yes, I know the sort of good problems you're talking about. Been there before and they've been a pain in the a**. That's why I'm trying to avoid some of them from the beginning. The rest, I'll handle when they come. Thanks for everything again.

Police line: Thanks but I'm not having problems traffic wise. It's the technical part I'm weak on