Interesting. I absolutely despise the setup of clush.com. In my opinion, it is about the worst I have seen. Excessively long to submit and very inconvenient for those who have a number of sites to submit.
$100,000?? Are you kidding me. This has to be made up. Why re-invent the wheel when you can just use www.PHPLinkDirectory.com scripts it is probably the best. WOW some people make me wonder!
I guess the number is made up meaning they spent 200 hours on development time. Then they average the average programmer's hourly cost at $500.00. More or Less this is made up.
We were never trying to "re-invent the wheel". At the time we started this project, I really did not know about phpld, and am not certain it was even around. I just had some really good luck with modfications we made to the Biz Directory Script, and added things that were sorely lacking IMHO. After getting yelled at by the owner of the Biz Directory Script for making modifications (even though we have done nothing to violate their license agreement) I decided it would be in my best interest to start from scratch. I wanted something well organized, customizable, fast, and designed to offer both the "webmaster/SEO" and the "end user" the best possible experience. I did not want to create "just another directory". I wanted something with a decent back end that offers the directory owner full control over the look/feel , as well as the ability to easily input YPN/AdSense, CJ, Azoogle, etc. without having to do a lot of custom coding or editing of raw php files. I further wanted something that gave the owner stats that not only showed the usual referrers, hits, etc., but showed how much money was coming in from each listing category, what the average daily income was. Beyond good reporting and a decent admin control panel, I also felt that the directory should take on as much work as it can, thus leaving the admin time to edit/approve listings. We've done a lot to reduce spam, and crap listings before they even get to the admin. And we have done an extreme amount of work insuring the directory stays fresh with listings that actually exist. Further to that, good interaction with those listing is a must, notifying them that their site is listed, letting them know automatically if it is delisted, relisting sites that may have been delisted for one reason or another, usually because the site was unreachable. There is quite a bit more to it than "re-inventing the wheel". I just wanted to build a better mouse trap, to coin another phrase. What I liked of Biz Directory was the basic look and feel. That is about all that we were influenced by in that regard. The code base is ours, it is clean, and (if you are a programmer) you will find it to be well organized and easy to use (assuming you bought the source). Anyway, the project has taken up a lot more time than I thought it would. There are several reasons for this. It's not the only thing we do, so resources are not always dedicated to it in a full time nature. The biggest issue is the fact that I keep thinking up new things to do. Of course once it is available, we will continue to add new features and releases, which we expect to be free to owners of the script. There is not much else for me to say until we actually have something for you all to look at, so I think I will leave it at that.
I was curious. What does this... http://www.kingbloom.com/sumba-list/ ...have to do with the King Bloom directory. I coudn't figure out what a Sumba list is. I look forward to seeing what you have. I think it is good to see more programming being done on directory scripts, and I hope that one day there will be some really fantastic stuff out there, that starts to put DMOZ and Yahoo to shame. Is it possible?