Hello People... Is it possible to create a site like LinkedIn? or something with more stuff than LinkedIn has to offer? (using PHP, that is...) I have a proposal from a prospective client who wants to setup a professional networking site, and I know a friend who's just decent enough with PHP. Would he be able to code it? He's not sure about it yet... But, what do you veterans think? How long would it take for him to do it? Would he be able do it alone at all? And, how much would it cost to get it coded, tested and implemented/installed on a server? Perhaps, some of you could volunteer with your quotes and deadline, if you're interested.
Hello theultimate1, If you are talking about LinkedIn . com then I won't think that person will be able to handle such a big project alone and you even can't simple deny saying he can't it depands on his skill sets. -- I guess it will run in months. -- Not really and not even practical. If you do have time and time is no bar then maybe. -- That really depands on project actual requirements. For sure it will need a high budget. I am open for further discussion. PM me if you are interested. Regards, Gonzo
Is it possible with PHP alone? No, you will need HTML, CSS, server(s), admin(s), marketers, food, headaches, tears, ..., ..., ... and ... . This is not a thing for people who are just decent enough, you better tell your client you don't have enough experience for this. Anyways, check this: http://www.getafreelancer.com/projects/PHP-NET/LinkedIn-Clone-EXACT.html It can help you if you have experience with outsourcing
I dropped a bid for a linked in clone in another language for 4,000 dollars to be completed in a month or so. I have the features and specs done somewhere. If you want to shoot me pm I can send it off to you. I am guessing the wheels fell off as I never heard back from him. Site specs included branding, design, and admin panel to manage the whole thing. hope that helps, Nigel
Just from taking a look at the front page and features, it seems pretty easy to do in PHP/MySQL and several client side scripts. Depending on the experience of your friend, they might be able to do it alone and in a short period of time. For me, doing a social site might take around 1 month full time for the first release. Peace,
You can mimic LinkedIn's functionality in a matter of weeks but you need to understand LinkedIn and what your client really needs first. If he can build a large volume of traffic on this thing a 4 week build will be inadequate to handle the load and crash or simply slow. Be clear with your client that it is more cost effective to build him a smaller version now with a decent set of features rather than a complete duplication of LinkedIn. What you see using LinkedIn is easy to replicate, it's what you don't see that is difficult and it is what you don't see that really makes LinkedIn what it is.
Ok, after I spoke to my prospect yesterday, he says that it is going to be a business networking site, predominantly. Not essentially as feature-ful as LinkedIn initially, but that is the target in the months to come. What he wants is a site that is all-in-one for business professionals. CRM, Statistical tools, Money calculators, Networking (of course), E-mail Autoresponder, etc., and he said he's done his homework on this and believes that combining a few good scripts in each of these areas might do the trick. Now, I haven't tried to check out how feasible that is, as I believe that you people here in DP would be in the best position to help me. What do you guys think? Gonzo, thanks for your views on this one. As for the budget, the prospect is pretty open to it although the ideal way to do it would be keeping the development costs as low as possible. He's ready to have up to 4 people working on it. Would that suffice? Hey, I saw that link before actually opening this thread. If I was to go by it, I guess that the development costs would run up to about $1500 or a little more than that. As for your first point, I never did mention PHP alone LOL. I know it takes more than that, but being in the PHP forum and talking about development, I was talking about the major part of building the whole thing. So, sometimes it's good to assume things to a certain level. No offence (Peace). I don't have enough programming experience agreed, but I can always get in good developers, 'coz adding this project to my portfolio will mean good things to me, and I believe I have sufficient capability to market it, especially when my earnings would be on profit-sharing basis. Hi Nigel, I'm not sure if he'll jump on the opportunity of an already-developed script and for $4,000 at that, but if you have a demo to show, I'll show it to him and we'll see what follows. Thanks for giving me that hope Bang on, that's where the need for a custom developer comes in. Once we've zeroed in on a person/team, we can divulge the SRS to that person. Believe it or not, the client hasn't shown it to me yet. Some BIG thing in his mind, I'm sure.
First off - has he done any market research on this? Why would business professionals use a page (newly developed, mind, without any endorsements or anything (from what you've told us thus far)), instead of just using in-house systems, etc? The security, at least, would have to be very strong, if you are about to have business-sensitive info in this project. 4 ppl working fulltime with only development, maybe? I would think just the load-balancing of this app would demand one or two coders. Forget about running this on a single, dedicated box, I'd say. I don't know if it's you or the client who is a dreamer, but $1500 in development costs won't take you very far. Even if you consider only $50 an hour, it will only give you 30 hours - and that is just for ONE developer. $4000 for an almost done job might not be bad - given, I have no idea about the work that lays in the mentioned app, so I can't say if it's worth it, but if that can be built upon, then I'd consider it. Not the one to break dreams, but it seems to me that you client wants the work of a professional development team done by semi-professionals/amateurs, basically for free, and that he hopes to reap the benefits (of which I'm highly doubtful there will be any, given the current amount of social networking sites). Basically he wants a "free" meal. Just my 2 cents
Ok, just to give you the numbers here. Software Engineers (and mind you, I'm talking about the ones that come from leading institutes and get a software programming job in the World's best IT companies) earn less than $30 a day, working on technologies that are way more complex than PHP and such. In fact, if you talk about the tough times like now, the starting pay is around $25 a day, and then there are taxes to be paid. As far as I see it, $1500 is a small budget for something so BIG, but sure it's not a small amount; and with all due respect to you, the client doesn't want a "free" meal. He's ready to up his budget, but this is idea for the time-being. As for the security of the whole thing, that's his top priority now, after I told him your point, and he's ready to invest a good chunk of money into ensuring that, either on the system or the server itself. He says he's not expecting a traffic/membership subscriptions as large as LinkedIn receives. He plans to set up a paid community, and says he has his own plans, to which even I'm a stranger.
To bring it to its logical conclusion: My take on this is that if he spends $1500 on development, he'll never get enough traffic to warrant extra servers.
Aahaa. That's interesting. But, it relates to marketing and such stuff. I'd like to come back to PHP... and hey, no offence to you at all... Peace
Hm. We are clearly not in the same part of the world. I work with IT-support, and I charge $50-60 an hour for private/individuals, and about $120-150 an hour for work for companies. This is low rates. I'm actually one of the cheaper consultants that does this type of work in my town. Regarding software engineering, if it paid less than $30 a day, noone in my country would even consider working as one - we would earn more working at a grocery store, almost. $50 an hour translates to NOK 320 approx - that is not all that much to pay for a consultant working for you alone. But, even if you drop it to $30 an hour, which translates to NOK 190, it is probably survivable. It will get you one person for 50 hours. If you split it on two developers, say one for the back-end code and one for design, you will get two persons for 25 hours each, or whatever combination you would need. Say, the design itself might not take that much time.
That's right buddy. That is why the budget starts at $1,500 assuming Indian developers will work on it. The client is ready to up his budget and is getting ambitious with the project. Pretty obvious why I'm trying to make it happen. There's commission for me in it, LOL.