Website set up

TheConzo

Hey everyone,

I was thinking about setting up a website and I was wondering how would I go about setting it up as an application that can be added by people on facebook and bebo?

And (i'm fairly new to setting up websites ), what happens - i buy the domain name, get someone to host it, i get a site template and then i design it to what i want it to look like?

I really appreciate any help you can give me, thanks a lot!

R3al

That is about the size of it, the basics are a domain name, a hosting plan and a website. You would be probably better off having the website designed / created before you purchase the hosting plan to save money as some websites may take several months to complete, it would be advisable to register your domain name straight away though to prevent someone else from reserving it.

ronkmonster

it is probably a bit more complicated to make the site into an application for social media sites than a standard static content site. php is a common programming language for websites and lots of hosting companies have it as part of hosting. have you got any programming experience?

Moonstar

You should decide whether the focus is going to be on the website or application.

If you're mainly going for an application, it's a different setup than making a site. Applications are mostly just some pages of scripting code (eg. PHP) and maybe some information in a database too.

These are usually hosted by you somewhere, even though they are presented to the user on Bebo/Facebook etc.

So in this case, your primary contact with users will be through the application, and any website setup itself will likely be secondary to the design of the application.

CuLT

Look here for Facebook's guidelines on developing apps: http://developer.facebook.com/

Their pre-requisites:

• You should be well versed in PHP or some other coding language — such as Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, or Python — especially one that has a client library for our API.
• You need to have a basic understanding of the Internet, SSH, MySQL, and Unix
• You need to be familiar with Web hosting fundamentals and have a place to host your application. You can read some fundamentals about hosting here

Also, there is a Facebook developer garage coming up in June according to Silicon Republic, if you're interested in getting into it in a big way.

TheConzo

Thanks for all the replies guys, its a big help. So far i dont have any PHP experience, i reckon i'll set it up primarily as a site and down the line look into how it can be incorporated into some social networking sites.

This way might give me some extra time to look into stuff like PHP cos at the moment i wouldnt really know where to start. I have the domain name is the process of being registered at the moment too so it should be ready in the next few days!

So stuff like php java etc, are they hard to figure out or would they take a lot of time to master?

ronkmonster

java (jsp) would be harder to learn than php - just harder to get configured.
php is considered easier to get started in. you can get stuff done quickly in it.