Basically im working on something that has a "little of everything" into it. I need opinions on what type of programming i should seek, as well as if i should use 3rd party software or have my own created.. thanks in advance if anyone has any input..

The site will have:

1) anymember can create their own message board, and a small profile (single picture of their selves, and a 1000 word limit about me paragraph, and contact/location info, as well as various message boards their subscribed to (subscribed = joined)) message boards can be posted in intervals by nonregistered users with 1 message per minute with IP banning and disabling public messaging by message board owners

2) any business member can create a blog, landing page, message board, consumer surveys, and will require a rating system

3) a donations utility that will manage donations submitted to users under the organization they opted to donate too

4) Indexing and searching of member profiles, message boards, business profiles, blogs, etc..

5) a merchandise store front (maybe spreadshirt, zazzle?)

6) email management tool built into a user control panel to edit profile, manage message board subscriptions, check mail/PM's, etc..

7) an interactive survery creator/statistical data management tool to display information from the # of specific surverys taken by users

8) a blog tool for each member to be able to use to submit informative articles, essays, etc...

9) traffic tracking system, for donations, impressions, hits, driven sites, affiliate program, etc..

10) reporting tool/ticket system, live chat system, and other various administration software


My main question and concern is weather it would be a royal pain in the a** to integrate various software like a blogger, forum system, payment tracker, traffic tracker, etc.. or just cheaper and efficent to have it all programmed to spec, and what types of languages/databases would be the most efficent for something like this.

Regards,

this is a giant project. I don't think it is a good idea to try saving money by integrating pieces of different applications. This project of yours is bigger than Myspace.com :)~ You might want to consult with some company on this and see how much money they would ask from you. :)

You are looking at least in the low-mid $$$$$$ range. Most probably it will be coded in asp (.Net) and use MSSQL, but be prepared to wait for at least 1 year :) The other thing is that this project will require at least 4-5 servers (separate Database one etc.) and a team to monitor it 24/7 .... and a lot of other expenses... What I'm trying to say is - be prepared to wait and throw money at it.

don't forget to hire a lawyer for your future company and be prepared for any lawsuits. :)

You're definately going to need some sort of well-managed language for something like that. It would be really stretching it to try and use PHP for something like this. You would end up with too much code to keep track of. I have seen it happen with large PHP applications, and it's not pretty. .NET would be a good choice, and you may want to look into using something like Ruby on Rails, as it has several good features for large web applications.

For something of this size, definitely a modern programming language that scales well and can be easily maintained. Besides .NET and Ruby on Rails, which have already been mentioned, there is also Python, as a possibility.

MySpace? pshh. :)

The whole thing is non profit, i plan on financing the project through donations from various companies.

So from what i see a more modern approach to this will be required

I think i figured out that if i have a seperate designer who does work with CMS' like bitweaver, and have a programmer customize an opensource CMS like bitweaver for say, I can just integrade that into the website, or another framework that maybe uses ROR or just go with .NET

Well the thing is the CMS are done in a way that is not easy for customization, and they are done by several (sometimes tens) of programmers. You can always try of course but if this is non-profit and you don't plan to invest a lot in it from the beginning ... well you should stick to PHP - get some programmers (team) and tell them what you have in mind, they'll be able to tell you exactly what it would cost and how it can be done. Leave the final design for a later stage.

MySpace? pshh. :)

The whole thing is non profit, i plan on financing the project through donations from various companies.

So from what i see a more modern approach to this will be required

for such big project and it is for non profit; how one could afford it in the long run?

The site its self will be self supporting through advertising and i will add a user donation/reward system (free shirt or what not with x. donation), I will only take 10% out of monthly revenue of the websites earnings for expenses on my end to maintain the site.

Have you taken a look at what's going on with Drupal, CiviCRM, CivicSpace, et al? Seems like there are modules that will do a lot of what you want. The Civi*** line of modules were developed with NPOs in mind.

Actually i havent and now they appeal to me. However were still deciding about weather to use a CMS or just create our own software. One problem with using software intended for NPO's is that the website has to generate some sort of revenue to support its self, and legally i do not know if that would be considering an NPO because it doesnt operate off of donations.. however i do know it can get tax cuts.

this is a giant project. I don't think it is a good idea to try saving money by integrating pieces of different applications. This project of yours is bigger than Myspace.com :)~ You might want to consult with some company on this and see how much money they would ask from you. :)

I agree. With a project this big, don't skimp on anything. You're going to be putting a huge amount of time and effort into it, you might as well make it worthwhile.

Well right now we already have the planned frame work for this, a programmer, designer, and project manager, and a budget for this part of the project. Also an outline for the sites services, so within 2 to 3 weeks it should be put into full gear, and planned to have the site running in beta 4 weeks after the beginning of development. I think im going to start a blog in a week or so for the project.