a BB or Social Networking w/ 68C?

[KBarnes_Aardvark]

This is not a post to 'bridge' 68C with a bb or sn.

I am starting a site that will sell classifieds (68C) and banner ads. I was going to make phpBB the core of the website (the draw so to speak) but since then I've found Elgg and it is sparked my interest.

The website does have a 'subject matter' (a sport/hobby) and in my geographical area there is a site that is doing ok but is falling apart with old technology (manual classifieds, static website etc). Their site is bulletin board based (and an old one at that).

I believe now that MySpace and Facebook are big 'most' people have used them to some degree, but I think most people in the market I seek to capture are EXTREMELY familiar with the standard BB. This particular group of people LOVE to spend waaaay to much time on the net (while at work) chit chatting, showing photos, bragging. etc.

My biggest goal is to drive people to the site so that the classifieds take off. I wonder if using something like Elgg (ie a facebook clone) will make it harder for me to 'police' as far as people posting commercial things (things that should be paid advertising either with the classified system or paid banner ads). I think people LOVE the idea of facebook/social networking because they can promote the almighty ME ME ME! hehe But I wonder if a bulletin board will offer me more control over those promoting their items for sale or commercial advertising?

A secondary thing that is very important to me aside from classifieds and banner ads is the ability to have a free/dynamic calender of events - and I know there is a mod for phpBB - not sure if this capability is there with ELG.

Though I want the classifieds and banner ad's to be their own entity - I'd like the events-calender to be tied in to which other piece I choose (either the BB or the SN).




Any thoughts?

I had actually read some where that people were DREAMING and DROOLING for a bridge between phpBB and Elgg.

[Lhotch]

Originally Posted by KBarnes_Aardvark

A secondary thing that is very important to me aside from classifieds and banner ads is the ability to have a free/dynamic calender of events - and I know there is a mod for phpBB - not sure if this capability is there with ELG.

Though I want the classifieds and banner ad's to be their own entity - I'd like the events-calender to be tied in to which other piece I choose (either the BB or the SN).

Creating a dynamic calendar to hold dynamic data is a pain in the rear. Since the vary nature of a calendar is to represent the passage of time, days, months and years are always changing and of course you want to give people the opportunity to look ahead and behind.

For one of the non profits I work with we wanted to have a web based calendar that was tied into the phpBB forum. I did a lot of searching for existing mods etc and never really found anything that seemed to work. We always posted upcomming events and such on the forum but they were spread out across the various subforums so it was hard to keep things straight.

What I did was modify the forum so that when someone started a thread they were displayed 2 extra fields between the thread subject and the body. One was a dropdown asking if the event should be placed on event calendar (ie YES/NO) and the second was a javascript controlled date entry field(ie click the field get a little popup cal to select your date).

This way people posting a thread about an event could at the same time with just a couple clicks have the item added to the event calendar on the sites main page. Clicking a heading in the event calendar brought them to the forum post where they could read more about the event.

After I did that, I took the calendar part of that and moved it over to a mod for 68C where the 68C admin creates an extra field to hold an event date, assigns it to the categories they want and then when someone places an ad that has a date plugged into the extra fiel it will auto appear on the calendar. Clicking the item on the calendar will take them to the 68C ad.

Not sure if any of that had relevence to what you are looking at doing but I know nothing about Elgg, little about facebook and nothing about myspace but if you havent found any calendar mods checking in their dev community then you are likely going to have to create your own.

[seymourjames]

Create a blog using WordPress or another and integrate phpBB. Try to make it seamless with 68C like they are part of the same system. It will pretty much meet your goals.

The other thing you perhaps might do is consider is the overall marketing aspects of your project. For example here on the forum I am trying to open a general discussion because I personally believe it is as much about marketing, if not more than technology: Marketing Ideas ; it is what separates the successful from the unsuccessful. We all get carried away with technology but most of our customers are much less interested.

[Lhotch]

Originally Posted by seymourjames

We all get carried away with technology but most of our customers are much less interested.

Creaigs list is the perfect example of how well a crappy site can do

[michael]

Oh if only 68C could be integrated with Joomla . . . . . sigh

[bowers01]

Have 68C in a subfolder with a link to it from Joomla, or were you meaning something else?

[Lhotch]

Originally Posted by michael

Oh if only 68C could be integrated with Joomla . . . . . sigh

The problem is what is integrated? Everyone seems to toss that word around and assume it means the same thing to everyone when in actuality it does not.

You can easily skin a 68C site and run it in joomla and for many that is integration. For others, they want the user database shared etc.

This is the exact reason the membership system was pulled, no one could agree on how it should work.