Webxperts: Does this Exist

[volklpowdermaniac]

I'm thinking of getting a project rolling and wondering if something exists to help me out. I want to build an online bulletin board of some sort for a small group of local people 150 or less. My vision is something like facebook+tgr+craigslist

Basically the goal is to have somewhere everyone can log into (or pehaps just click to) and see others in this group of people, selling stuff, posting interesting articles, photos, job offers in the local community, help needed, sharing odds and ends.--- i know sounds like tgr, but need it smaller and much simpler

Currently we communicate through a big email chain, which is fine, except sometimes things don't need to be fogging up people's emails, they could just go on said site.

I realize it's a web concept that a html expert or website designer could build, but i'm wondering if any company does it in the same way that there are host and build sites for like blogs.

It would need to be simple and easy to be effective.

Maybe i'm missing an obvious place to visit to get this going, but my mind is blank right now.

Think community bulletin board--- completely online -- with out any of the extraneousness (i made that word up) of facebook.

[splat]

asana.com? Maybe more of a project place...

[Tye 1on]

i'm no webxpert, but for under $300 you can buy a vBulletin license and build a forum like this and all the others that use this software. $2/person. And just start it simple.

[Nobody Famous]

I may be way off here, what immediately comes to mind is tribe.net or meetup.com.

A "startup" web site named ning.com got a lot of publicity a few years ago aiming to do almost exactly what you describe, but it never took off. So maybe if you search for something like ning.com, you might get some more possibilities.

[Snow Dog]

Sounds like you group might like Google+

[Nobody Famous]

i'm no webxpert, but for under $300 you can buy a vBulletin license and build a forum like this and all the others that use this software. $2/person. And just start it simple.

With this approach you also have to administer a database, find a hosting site that allows you to run a database, and in theory backup your data.

Which brings up a finer point, with sites like ning, meetup, etc, they own all the data, and so if the company (.com startup) ever goes out of business, your data is gone too.

[f2f]

http://elgg.org/ if you want to roll it out on your own servers and control everything.

[SaSSafraS_LTK]

You could do something like a google group if you don't want the hassle of maintaining an actual website. Also then if people prefer to stick with the email format they can.

[volklpowdermaniac]

hmm...not as simple as I envisioned. Ning.com looks promising, they claim on their site YOU own all of your data. Ning looks like the most Computer Programming /html/etcetera-JONG friendly. Vbullitin also looks ok, but seems a little more complicated to get up and running.---is it?

[Nobody Famous]

On the Ning 'you own the data' point, I believe what they mean is no one else can control it and it's private to you and your group. It doesn't mean you can for example export the data -- whether the data is message board postings, blog entries, pictures, etc -- and save it for use in another format or for archiving purposes.

It sounds like your data and 'content' is not critical and can simply expire with no need to archive it. If that is not the case maybe you should confirm the above.

I've seen some interesting web site 'communities' on ning in the past. Like for a local softball league, and for people who fix up and show classic cars. I think both are gone now.

[volklpowdermaniac]

On the Ning 'you own the data' point, I believe what they mean is no one else can control it and it's private to you and your group. It doesn't mean you can for example export the data -- whether the data is message board postings, blog entries, pictures, etc -- and save it for use in another format or for archiving purposes.

It sounds like your data and 'content' is not critical and can simply expire with no need to archive it. If that is not the case maybe you should confirm the above.

I've seen some interesting web site 'communities' on ning in the past. Like for a local softball league, and for people who fix up and show classic cars. I think both are gone now.

Yeah precisely. this is very low key, non-sensitive information, more for just keeping everyone in contact with what's going on.

[jcnoble5]

More so for events, but perhaps check out something like uplanme.com. Not sure if they can link friends to their respective selling sites, but maybe..

[shirk]

Learn Drupal.

Open source.

With a little Drupal knowledge you could have something up and running in a matter of hours on a super cheap web hosting package. Do some googling to see how well the host plays with Drupal. I run several sites on 1and1 and 1and1 kinda sucks for Drupal.

[JRainey]

Wordpress has a social media exentsion called buddypress. It's pretty simple, but can do what your talking about.

[RShea]

There are a number of free open source bulletin boards very similar to vBulletin board that TGR and others use out there by paying the license fee. Many hosting offerings (including the one I offer to customers) have these other options available for installation. To supplement this you could also have users do some blogs or similar like CMS- basically one of the many ways that group stuff could be shared. Content Management Systems generally fit into the following loose categories: Blogs (also known as weblogs), CMSs, Portals. Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla and a number of others used for the non-forum part of the web site. You would have to have a hosting account and some time to do some of the design, but you would be able to control the content and own it. (Just like TGR that has other web pages besides this community forum)- for stuff like their movies and other ventures tied together. Break down the components you want from say a Facebook- chat? messaging? -those are easy to have available, the one harder thing is the central "wall" and integrate all the "friend" postings all together on one landing page...

Also would you want this site to be private- only available to the group and restrict login to the members of the group? Or would some parts (like the for sale swap type of stuff) be open to others to view and see?

[PaulB]

One thing to consider is that whatever you set up, as soon as it goes live on the web, a bot somewhere is going to start trying to break into it, post spam, etc. Less of a problem if you go with well supported products like Drupal, Wordpress, etc., just make sure you, or your hosting provider, keep on top of security updates.

[DHogg]

Whats wrong with a facebook group?