Hello all. We are looking into creating a small website that will do some tracking of ideas and other similar things. The website that best explains similar concepts is that of www.betfair.com. They use a tool that users of the site can bet on outcomes of certain events. What does everyone think the best way of programming something like this would be? I have been told Java would be great but expensive. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
You don't know what you're doing or what you're talking about so either hire someone to do this for you or give it up. End of story.
You talk about a small website - in what way will it be small? A small niche? small potential number of users? I had a look at betfair and nothing about it looked "small". The standard recommendations of Joomla or WordPress would do the trick with some hefty work done on the betting "modules" or "plugins". I'd probably start with cakePHP but it all depends on the actual requirements and I like cake. Using Java would take the development into the big boys stakes simply because administering the hosting is relatively complex. Just making a "hello world" script in Java is complex. Long before you worry about the capabilities of the scripting (so long as you select from the options above) you'll need to look at your hosting. A large number of people betting at the same time will mean you need a dedicated server or two and then you get into replication and load balancing issues. I'm assuming you've done your business plan and you have an idea of how many users you can expect at peak times and the anticipated revenue. Those figures will be necessary for determining what hosting requirements you have. Then add in the programming costs and compare to revenue and you'll know if you are onto a winner.
Small was referring to the potential number of users on the site . BETFAIR is a large site but has the same concept virtually around the whole website. Do you think wordpress can really handle something like this? With the feeds being pulled for the bets? Another person proposed that but I feel like the complexity of the features might be better suited for PHP. I appreciate your honest and helpful response. At least some people can be useful on this thread instead of not positive at all.
Wordpress is written in PHP. I don't get what you mean by "feeds being pulled for the bets". Will the bets not be stored in the database? It doesn't look like a complicated structure to me. You have categories, betting opportunities (including open time, close time) and the actual bets - linking through to users, of course. Even if you are up in the management strata it pays to understand the basics of web technology so that when you are "buying" services you don't get spun a line.
Custom PHP. Feeds being pulled for the bets means - the information will be automatically populated from other websites, or purchased. The bets will be populated themselves but the betting will take place from each user. I like to think I have a good understanding of basic technology and web process, I never code or ever will, but I always have amazing people around me who know more than me, that is the key to a successful business.