Costs of launching a social network???

**MellowD** · 08-17-2008, 03:02 AM

Sorry if this has already discussed but I couldn't find anything relating to this. What would a site like myspace, facebook, youtube, etc. cost to launch? About how much does it cost to set up a database? If I were to design a site and pay someone to write the scripts, what other costs would there be?

**chrishirst** · 08-17-2008, 06:04 AM

To launch? the cost of some dedicated hosting and the name registration.

Someone to code the scripts? Bespoke scripts as a complete one off could be anywhere from £8,000 upwards (That's GB pounds BTW not dollars)

Database design? £2,000 to £5,000 as a ballpark figure.

Others;
Promotion & Marketing - upwards of £20,000 per MONTH. And maybe add another zero in there for the first 2 years at least.
And of course depending on how much offline advertising in what countries would be used, you could easily double or triple that.

have a read at -> http://www.startup-review.com/blog/m...iral-start.php

**usearchme** · 07:53 AM

Hi there

Chris post sound about right, but really there is no way you can compete with those sites from the off, unless you have lots and lots of money even compainies massive companies are struggling to design sites to beat the ones you mentioned.

The best thing to do would start off with a small budget and build ur site slowly, and as your site gains more people and makes more money put this money back into promoting ur site, if your sites good enough it might well become as big as myspace or facebook.

Interesting article btw chris, but there are far too many people now are just thinking about being the next myspace, building a site takes hard work !

Woc

**MellowD** · 08-17-2008, 05:27 PM

thanks for the quick response guys. i understand there are thousands and thousands of social networks out there, i was just using myspace and facebook as an example without giving out my idea. we are starting with a small budget so we want to be as cost effective as possible. we were planning on designing the site and paying someone to code it. also can we just have someone host it then upgrade to a database once we need it? any advice would be great. basically we are just trying to get a site up so we can present it to investors.

**willcode4beer** · 08-18-2008, 12:10 PM

One of the best ways to save money on development is not to do the development

Apache Shindig gives you an open source implementation of the Open Social API. I'd highly recommend starting with something like that so, developers can hit the ground running.

OTOH, starting a new social network will be a challenge. There's 100 new ones every day so standing out will be tough. Try to launch with a significant number of people ready to sign-up and have a good marketing campaign ready to go.

**jv17** · 08-21-2008, 11:11 PM

it depends what will you be having..

**JN72** · 09-16-2008, 11:45 PM

Unless you are planning to take on the big guys about $2500 will get the job done. I personally use freelancers, usually out of India who work for far cheaper. Your biggest cost will be buying and customizing whatever script you intend to use, and then the server cost.

**tom0407** · 09-19-2008, 04:23 PM

$2500 might get the job done, but I wouldn't like to say how well, and I think if you want to seriously make a half decent website you'd be looking more along the lines of Chris's post.

Like most things though if you're able to code it yourself you'll save a LOT of money. The trouble is a person can't be good at everything, so building up a team all with a shared interest in your site doing well might be your best bet.

We've built loads of websites, the latest being the one in my signature. Building the site is the easy bit, promoting it effectively just takes a bit of imagination or a LOT of money.

**tom0407** · 09-19-2008, 04:31 PM

That's a really interesting post about MySpace too Chris - bit long, but nice one

**denook** · 09-25-2008, 02:45 AM

I would say about $1000 to get started for dedicated hosting, and domains. Than you can upgrade hosting/bandwidth as your social network grows.

**kruzzen** · 11-12-2008, 02:09 AM

Go to www.boonex.com and check out software, Dolphin... why not launch it for free?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MellowD

Sorry if this has already discussed but I couldn't find anything relating to this. What would a site like myspace, facebook, youtube, etc. cost to launch? About how much does it cost to set up a database? If I were to design a site and pay someone to write the scripts, what other costs would there be?

**Learning Newbie** · 11-12-2008, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MellowD

also can we just have someone host it then upgrade to a database once we need it? any advice would be great. basically we are just trying to get a site up so we can present it to investors.

You don't "upgrade" from not having a database to having one. You can tear the walls off, replace the engine, and rebuild the frame, but that really stops being an upgrade.

Or, in less poetic and esoteric terms, a database is at or near to the heart of an interactive application, whether it's a desktop or a web app. It's too much of a corner stone to build without and then just try to "swap in".

Somebody else made the suggestion to build off other people's work, ie open source. If you can choose a basic scheme and funnel all your data through a particular gateway, you can make the job of upgrading your database down the line easier. But going from none to a full blown one, will be far more expensive in the long run, and much riskier.