What is the process for designing a social networking website?

I'm a grad student and two professors have approached me about being the project lead on developing a social-network platform. They're wanting to use it to create survey's via a collaborative community; and I'm curious if anyone knows any best practices for developing such a site, and the time/cost factors that goes into it. I've started looking into development via a LAMP platform, and think that we will use dedicated servers at first. Could anyone recommend starting points, perhaps based on own research or experience? Thanks!

What is the process for designing a social networking website?
Hi! I have designed such a website in my college days.


The first step is to decide on the database schema - number of tables, relations, where to store messages, how to optimize accessing them, etc. because a lot of users are going to use daily.


- make calculations how many users u are expecting.


- how many messages will they be sending everyday


- how to store these messages, relations for storing friends lists etc.





After databse, give emphasis on menu(navigation). If u use orkut, myspace etc, u know which are the most used links. Put such links on every page on most visible side. like horizontal top OR vertical left. They should be more visible.





Then decide on the programming language. I used ASP.NET. Use any of them. It doesnt matter.





Again, put emphasis on SQL queries to optimize them. Because in these site, data increases significantly. Wrong queries can delay the whole process.





The graphics should be spicy and lesser in size. Make use of same graphics everywhere to speed loading time.





i guess u now need to see some such sites on net and start with the steps above.





Best of Luck.


-MLN ;)
Reply:Start small





Test with limited users





Grow your features as needed.