starting a social media site?

[john]

let me just admit I have no experience or am not at all well versed whatsoever in "programming" or whatever the proper term is.

I had an idea for a social media type site, but with what i know now, and what i could maybe possibly learn in the very short term, would more likely than not leave me incapable of building a website/social media interface on my own. This "idea" I had, as far as the interface/overall concept I envisioned would not be as complicated as say facebook or youtube or any social media site like that, but it still would be almost on par with that.


so my question is, If I acquired enough funds, is this something a website development company could just create for me? and i would hire the necessary programmers and staff to maintain the website, in a technical sense?



ps. are there any books you can recommend to me so i can understand how programming works?

as far as starting and running my own social media site, this is something im serious about doing, so im asking for book or general website recommendations so i can know the, proper lingo, and so i can proceed with knowing how to talk and sell my idea to someone. thanks

[Mizanur]

something its true.

[Steve]

Yes a development company could create it for you, although if it is a really good idea and site then you should employ the developers yourself because of the legal implications of one of the developers taking your idea to another company.
As for any books on the subject I have no idea, but I seriously doubt there will be since Social Media site are created by people who have a vision and the technicalities of such a site are closely guarded secrets.
You can get books on programming but you will need quite a few to understand all the technologies required e.g. PHP, SQL, Java, jQuery, Javascript, HTML, CSS, Oracle, C#, C++, Ruby, Perl, App development, HTTP protocols, TCP/IP configuration and these are just the basics

[just "JR"]

Not trying to put you down, be aware that ANY social network requires HUGE amounts of hard cash to have a chance of any kind of success.
Without programming experience, you will have no choice but go to professionals for the development. Expect, reasonnably, a few 1000's for anything of quality. Any development "on-the-cheap" will go nowhere.
Once you have the site, you need to make it "alive". The way to do it is to create "ghost members" (a few thousands), and give them a "history", that is, some activities over a few months. The prupose of the ghost members is to show the new, real visitor, that the site IS active! Nobody wants to be "member number 1" Nobody goes to a social network where there is nobody... (it is the same technique used for dating sites, forums etc) You cannot do that yourself: it "shows" a personality: yours! You need different people. Usually, pay a group of people to do so.
But making the site is just the beginning: you need members to be successful, and to get members, you MUST advertise (on the web as well as out).
No site has ever been successful without heavy advertising.
(Look at Google advertising plans: they will NOT even listen to your request if your budget is less than 20k! FB starts at 50k campaigns... and I am not talking of TV ads...)
In my experience (20+ years), the SMALLEST budget is 1000us$/month for 6 to 12 months before you see any results.
So... unless you are prepared to spend/risk 20k, don't bother: you will just rejoin the thousands of hopefuls who find themselves very disapointed!
Sorry for the cold shower.

[Derek]

UltimateWB is great - I use it and like it a lot.