How can I start a website like facebook?

[John Stanton]

First off do you have any web experience? Starting a social network like Facebook is actually pretty easy but you're going to need some coding and design skills if you're going to be the only person behind it. There's alot of software out there that will pretty much everything you need right off the bat but you'll need to be able to customize it a bit to suit your needs.

The first thing you'll want to do is make sure your idea could actually be successful. If you just plan on making a Facebook clone the chances of your website succeeding are pretty slim. If you're targeting a specific niche then things will be alot easier. Contrary to what others say on here launching a social network that targets a specific group of people is actually not that bad of an idea. Before you start you need to see who your competition would be (remember Facebook has the Groups feature - this will probably be your biggest competition depending on what your niche is). Also figure out how you plan to monetize the site. Ads through Google and other ad providers don't really pay out all that much and definitely won't offset the cost of running the site so you'll need a good way to make money.

If you think you've got these things covered and you're ready to go ahead with the idea then you'll need a domain ($10), hosting ($10/month), and some software to run your network ($0-$500). You can find a pretty good list of social network software in this article:

http://techcrunch.com/2007/07/24/9-ways-...l-network/

Once everything is setup the biggest thing you're going to have to worry about is marketing. You're gonna need a way to get active users to join your network and help it grow. There's many strategies you can use but it all depends on your budget and who you're targeting. Since you don't have an active group of users already (unless you run another website) this is going to be the most crucial part of launching your site.

Anyway if you decide to go ahead with your website I'd be happy to help you out. I've set up a few social networks myself so I know the DOs and DONTs.

Good luck!