new website idea, need help

kenk121

I have a great new website idea but have little knowledge of getting one set up or hosted etc. There is a similar website in the US but not in Ireland.

jimmii

It depends if you want a .ie or not you can see the rules regarding .ie registrations here http://www.register365.com/ie.html

There is also a whole sticky about registering a .ie on the forum http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056271832

Is it a service website, a forum or are you selling a product? Depending on what you are planning on doing there will be different things you need to do registration wise.

kenk121

Hi Jimmii

Its a service website. Can you give me any idea of cost for a website similar to donedeal or daft? All I can say is its similar but a twist that would attract more customers

jimmii

When you say cost what do you mean? If you want to set up a site and have viewing numbers like them then you would need a lot of money! The cost of setting up a site is really a how long is a piece of string type question you can set up a website for <€20 if you want or you can spend tens of thousands. If you think you can get more customers than daft then I think you will probably be in for a surprise it takes a lot of work to get to that level.

kenk121

I never said I'd be looking for more customers then daft, I posted here looking for advise. If all people were as negative as you none of these websites would have ever been set up, they didn't have all those customers when they were at this stage, and yes I am prepared to spend about 50k on this project and hope to have allot of customers. Prob never as much as them tho

jimmii wrote: »

When you say cost what do you mean? If you want to set up a site and have viewing numbers like them then you would need a lot of money! The cost of setting up a site is really a how long is a piece of string type question you can set up a website for <€20 if you want or you can spend tens of thousands. If you think you can get more customers than daft then I think you will probably be in for a surprise it takes a lot of work to get to that level.

jimmii

Sorry when you said:

kenk121 wrote: »

Hi Jimmii

Its a service website. Can you give me any idea of cost for a website similar to donedeal or daft? All I can say is its similar but a twist that would attract more customers

I thought you meant you would attract more customers but I guess you meant something else! With a budget of €50k you can definitely get off to a good start. Is it a service people are likely to be googling often or is it going to be something completely new to Ireland?

kenk121

Yes it would be Googled allot. It's not entirely new but would be an improved version of something already there but it would be more appealing to the end customer so this would make it the website to use over the competitors

jimmii wrote: »

Sorry when you said:



I thought you meant you would attract more customers but I guess you meant something else! With a budget of €50k you can definitely get off to a good start. Is it a service people are likely to be googling often or is it going to be something completely new to Ireland?

jimmii

Approach a few developers who have experience developing sites in the field you are after and see what they can do development wise and SEO/advertising wise. By the sounds of it you could be on to something is the US site pretty new or has it got an established history? Very curious to see what it is make sure to let us know when you get it up and running!

Peterdalkey

Might be worth going along to your Enterprise Board to see about getting specialised advice in the areas and even better an online guru mentor. You have the funds to be a serious prospect to them.

jimmii

Would probably qualify for High Postential Start Up funding I would have thought http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/funding-supports/Company/HPSU-Funding/

Graham

jimmii wrote: »

Would probably qualify for High Postential Start Up funding I would have thought http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/funding-supports/Company/HPSU-Funding/

Not for a domestic product.

It also has to be innovative, like DAFT/DoneDeal with XYZ doesn't sound that innovative.

This may help:

http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/funding-supports/Company/Have-a-Startup-Idea/

Kenk121, before you start throwing wads of cash at getting a web site built, get someone to help you with writing a proper business plan/spec. Preferably someone who isn't also offering to build you the website.

Stamply

Start slow and build an MVC/proof of concept. Build the core functionality even if there is loads of manual management in the admin section. Manual management can be great for learning how the different types of users are using the application.

If you're willing to spend that kind of money type in "Web design" into Google and pick the top three companies to speak to. You'll need very slick design, a good partner company and a plan for phasing the build, rolling out the parts you know you'll definitely need in the beginning while learning more about the market & user behaviour in order to build the more uncertain features & functionality later. There is no such thing as a complete product in web or software, its a constant evolution...

kenk121

Hi Graham

Thanks for your reply. That's what I'm looking for, someone that can advise and guide me. Would be willing to give % of the business in return

Graham wrote: »

Not for a domestic product.

It also has to be innovative, like DAFT/DoneDeal with XYZ doesn't sound that innovative.

This may help:

http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/funding-supports/Company/Have-a-Startup-Idea/

Kenk121, before you start throwing wads of cash at getting a web site built, get someone to help you with writing a proper business plan/spec. Preferably someone who isn't also offering to build you the website.

EIREHotspur

When talking to the local Enterprise Board be prepared and brace yourself for the term "Business Course" that will come up at least 45 times in the course of the conversation....they are also in the Business of giving Business Courses...I kid you not...experience of this in the last 6 months with several people I dealt with. They would like nothing better than to sit you in a room, show you endless powerpoint presentations and recite wonderfull insightful clever business quotes they downloaded from the internet.

I echo what the lads have said....you need to talk to an accountant who will guide you through a Business plan and also when you come to building a website...pick a web developer who will invest time with you and be available on an ongoing basis.
Scale your website as you go along and beware of outlandish quotes.

Also if you do get quotes on per section of development and not on a per hour basis.

Atomico

Forget about web design and quotes until you tease out your concept a bit more and figure out if there is an actual market for your service. Web design companies will be only too happy to quote you for something, the first thing you need to look into is whether this is a viable / good idea at all.

It sounds like it might be a 'Daft / Done Deal with this extra feature they've missed' type of idea, which doesn't sound very promising at all. That's not being negative, just realistic. If you are looking to build something that is similar to these kind of sites, it's going to need to be offer something they don't / can't - and it's unlikely that that is going to be something worth building.

EIREHotspur

Read his post again Atomico.

He wants to build a Services website....similar to donedeal.ie or daft.ie meaning in scale, design or features.

He merely gave those as examples of Services websites with website features he thought he would need....not websites he was looking to replicate.

As Steve Jobs once said...."Going into Business it is important you have a great filter system"...as in ignore the negativity you get.
My advice to him is do his own research and if he believes in it...go for it!

Atomico

EIREHotspur wrote: »

Read his post again Atomico.

He wants to build a Services website....similar to donedeal.ie or daft.ie meaning in scale, design or features.

He merely gave those as examples of Services websites with website features he thought he would need....not websites he was looking to replicate.

How can you tell that from his posts exactly?!

I already read his post. He said:

Can you give me any idea of cost for a website similar to donedeal or daft?

Then he also said the idea is similar to those sites but 'with a twist'. So based on the very limited info provided so far, it looks like he is looking at building a site that is similar to these established sites, presumably with some sort of additional feature or 'twist'. The question is, if these sites (or other sites) have not implemented this features, is there a chance it's not worth building?

EIREHotspur wrote: »

As Steve Jobs once said...."Going into Business it is important you have a great filter system"...as in ignore the negativity you get.
My advice to him is do his own research and if he believes in it...go for it!

I'm all for ignoring negativity, but as I did say in my post, I'm not being negative - merely realistic. We are also saying the same thing here - research and figure out if there is a market. The world is full of ideas people believed in but which went nowhere, right? So by all means be positive and believe in the idea, once you've figured out that it really is a good one. That may involve building an MVP at a modest cost, but do the research first!

EIREHotspur

I agree with you....and your answer is reasonable and measured...a lot of people would get provoked by my response.

I know that by the manner in which he tried to tell us and not give away his idea.

If I had a website idea like Boris Johnson's (who got the idea somewhere else) of renting out bikes around the major cities in Ireland....I would come here and ask "how much would a website like www.budget.ie cost to do....I have an idea in the services area similar to that but with a twist".

The twist would be it is bikes, not cars but by using that website I would know that I needed someone to be able to log on, use their CC and book a car (bike) and a map to show locations.

"Can you give me any idea of cost for a website similar to donedeal or daft?"

If his idea was for people to sell items or sell houses...then he would have just gave away his idea.

Atomico

I know what you mean. However, in this case I suspect that the OP may actually be thinking about an alternative Daft or Done Deal, pr perhaps a listings site in another area that takes a different approach or position to the established player(s).

We will have to await further info I guess

narubi

Good luck with the website. However I would suggest you to do some extended research before you spend 50,000 for advertisement. Try to find out why there is no such website already developed in Ireland yet. Use the Google keyword tool or other tools to see how many monthly searches and potential customers will you get from Google. Or even ask people you know or some strangers, or online if they would like to have such website in Ireland and if they would use it on daily basis.

Or you can PM me your website idea and I can give you an advice. Don't worry I already have many websites and I am busy developing them. I won't steal your idea

jmcc

kenk121 wrote: »

I never said I'd be looking for more customers then daft, I posted here looking for advise.

There are many web developers capable of building a small website. Most of them will probably offer to build such a small site for your venture and they might, through not knowing any better, expect it to scale. However building a large scale, scalable site is a very difficult thing to do and most web developers are not capable of doing this because it requires a set of skills (software engineering, hardware engineering, programming, database design and development, web development, marketing, and administration) that are rarely found in one individual.

If all people were as negative as you none of these websites would have ever been set up, they didn't have all those customers when they were at this stage, and yes I am prepared to spend about 50k on this project and hope to have allot of customers. Prob never as much as them tho

Daft were very much in the right place at the right time but they also have a good team. Donedeal got its timing right but they put a lot of work in to promoting it so it is not just the website. There will be a lot of eager people wanting to take that 50K but you might be better off working out a business plan and a requirements specification before you build anything.

Regards...jmcc

ironclaw

Hey OP, I'm a developer both in web and iPhone. If you fancy, shoot me the idea by PM (I'll go on the record here as it being entire confidential and I have dealt with people here before) and I'll try give you an idea of its feasibility and the approximate cost.

jmcc

Perhaps for fun, developers who are offering their expertise can also mention the last Daft/Donedeal scale site they built or alternatively, the size and complexity of the last large site that they built.

Regards...jmcc

ironclaw

jmcc wrote: »

Perhaps for fun, developers who are offering there expertise can also mention the last Daft/Donedeal scale site they built or alternatively, the size and complexity of the last large site that they built.

Regards...jmcc

Donedeal or Daft isn't actually that complex. Genuinely. A decent few days with 2 or 3 people would build an exact replica. A single person could probably knock out a decent version in a week.

Where they differ, is the sheer amount of users and brand awareness. And that is impossible to put a price on. Its like MySpace and facebook, why is one more popular over the other? Buy And Sell was here LONG before Donedeal and had a website first. But DoneDeal just garnered a cult following for second hand car sales (In my opinion) and that just started the ball rolling in the snow for them.

If you want to be anywhere near DoneDeal or Daft, 90% of your budget will be advertising.

Buttercake

kenk121 wrote: »

I never said I'd be looking for more customers then daft, I posted here looking for advise. If all people were as negative as you none of these websites would have ever been set up, they didn't have all those customers when they were at this stage, and yes I am prepared to spend about 50k on this project and hope to have allot of customers. Prob never as much as them tho

Nothing worse than a "I got an idea and lots of cash" guy. This is an open forum where you get quick responses for free from users experienced in answering these type of posts, nothing negative to your idea. Look forward to seeing your site.

paulheu

kenk121 wrote: »

Hi Jimmii

Its a service website. Can you give me any idea of cost for a website similar to donedeal or daft? All I can say is its similar but a twist that would attract more customers

Building a website like that requires much more then hosting. If it is (going to be) as good as you seem to think it will be you need a lot of bandwidth a lot of backend storage and power and a team of people keeping it all together.

To get it of the ground I doubt you would be able to make it work for less than high 5 figures and that's just the startup. the 50K you mention would probably be just enough to start on a tight budget, but it won't go anywhere near keeping a project like this running. Getting the site out and into the public eye alone would likely gobble up that money.

nikinova

Hi please PM me if you would like advice on setting up a site and have SEO, SMM, SEM done. I have working experience and do freelance in this area.

jmcc

ironclaw wrote: »

Donedeal or Daft isn't actually that complex. Genuinely. A decent few days with 2 or 3 people would build an exact replica. A single person could probably knock out a decent version in a week.

And a single person or two or three could probably use it at the same time. Scaling for multiple simultaneous users is a bit more complex.

Its like MySpace and facebook, why is one more popular over the other?

Management team, marketing strategy, software/hardware design and an initially clearly defined market that grew.

Buy And Sell was here LONG before Donedeal and had a website first.

Buy and Sell had a magazine first. The site was an outgrowth of that. It even wanted to give away shares in its website company at the height of the DotCom bubble because some US companies were doing so as a marketing gimmick. (There was also Ebid.ie (a poor Ebay clone by people who didn't understand what eBay was doing).

But DoneDeal just garnered a cult following for second hand car sales (In my opinion) and that just started the ball rolling in the snow for them.

They also did a lot of on the ground marketing when it seemed like eBay was the only game in town.

If you want to be anywhere near DoneDeal or Daft, 90% of your budget will be advertising.

It will still need the other stuff.

Regards...jmcc

Peterdalkey

If I wanted to set up such a site, I would be looking to buy a packaged CMS to run it, and not seek to build from scratch. I would spend my money on great graphic design and site promotion not on mechanics that I can buy off the shelf.

EIREHotspur

You know I doubt there is anyone more help in this Business than you Peter and I don't think I have read anything you posted that I have not agreed with.

You and ironclaw speak sense.

Without naming names....it is absolute yuppy double speak nonsense to throw around Web Development Terms that I have read here.

Daft.ie and Donedeal.ie are two successful websites with some of the worst design I have seen....lovely design for maybe 10 years ago.
They are built by Web Developers with Database knowledge.

You can buy ready made solutions, edit them and add in the database structure and scale up as you go along.

software engineering, hardware engineering, programming, database design and development, web development and administration = DREAMWEAVER

marketing is what makes the difference....that's a real skill to have.

Graham

EIREHotspur wrote: »

You know I doubt there is anyone more help in this Business than you Peter and I don't think I have read anything you posted that I have not agreed with.

You and ironclaw speak sense.

Without naming names....it is absolute yuppy double speak nonsense to throw around Web Development Terms that I have read here.

Daft.ie and Donedeal.ie are two successful websites with some of the worst design I have seen....lovely design for maybe 10 years ago.
They are built by Web Developers with Database knowledge.

You can buy ready made solutions, edit them and add in the database structure and scale up as you go along.

software engineering, hardware engineering, programming, database design and development, web development and administration = DREAMWEAVER

marketing is what makes the difference....that's a real skill to have.

I'd agree with Peters suggestion, commercial off the shelf software to start with customised enough to validate the concept. If it doesn't work, no big loss. If it does work be sure you have a team ready to start putting out fires in a hurry.

EIREHotspur, you're in danger of throwing out some really good advice with the sweeping generalisations of your last post.

There's a big difference between a 'developer' that can cobble together a basic website and someone that's able to build a scaleable/resilient/secure large scale web app.

There are one or two posters here who have hands-on experience at the higher end of the market, they aren't here to sell their skills/wares at all. In fact they have nothing to gain personally by sharing the benefit of their experience. Are these the double speaking yuppies you're referring to?

EIREHotspur

Graham I am from the midlands so you will have to forgive me for not being into the whole Web Development speak.....like software engineering or any of those hi filuting terms that people like to blind non tech people with.

Like Ironclaw says in simple plain every day English.
"Donedeal or Daft isn't actually that complex".

If my car is towed to a garage after it breaks down on a highway and I go talk to the guy who will fix it....I don't want him to show how clever he is at his job by impressing me with his knowledge of electronics for half an hour.

"My car is broke....what is wrong with it, how much will it cost me and how long will it take"?

This guy doesn't want to hear complicated jargon....anything else is yuppy double speak.

"a 'developer' that can cobble together a basic website".
That's not a Developer....that's a Designer.

and someone that's able to build a scaleable/resilient/secure large scale web app.
Are you talking Web Apps now or Mobile Web Apps.
People who can do actual Apps with original features have software coding skills...there are off the shelf solutions again if you wanted to do Apps.

beauf

EIREHotspur wrote: »

...software engineering, hardware engineering, programming, database design and development, web development and administration = DREAMWEAVER

It really isn't.

EIREHotspur wrote: »

marketing is what makes the difference....that's a real skill to have.

Marketing can make a big difference. But I don't think it will save a service/product that doesn't work for customers/users.

EIREHotspur

ok take software engineering, hardware engineering and programming out.

Buttercake

Don't know any web developers these days who use Dreamweaver...

Graham

EIREHotspur wrote: »

Graham I am from the midlands so you will have to forgive me for not being into the whole Web Development speak.....like software engineering or any of those hi filuting terms that people like to blind non tech people with.

I'm not sure your birthplace is entirely relevant but I'm assuming you speak the same language and use the same computers/internet as us city folk.

EIREHotspur wrote: »

Like Ironclaw says in simple plain every day English.
"Donedeal or Daft isn't actually that complex".

Superficially, maybe not. My fear for the OP is that he finds a developer to relieve him of €50k while cobbling together a website that superficially does the same as Donedeal or Daft.

EIREHotspur wrote: »

If my car is towed to a garage after it breaks down on a highway and I go talk to the guy who will fix it....I don't want him to show how clever he is at his job by impressing me with his knowledge of electronics for half an hour.

"My car is broke....what is wrong with it, how much will it cost me and how long will it take"?

Your car isn't likely to have to carry several hundred/thousand passenger at the same time.

The OP is talking about websites that may need to support hundreds of simultaneous users, the technology required to support that is way beyond what a WP Monkey may have picked up during his 4 week FAS course.

To borrow your analogy, the OP is talking about opening a garage, not getting a car repaired.

EIREHotspur wrote: »

This guy doesn't want to hear complicated jargon....anything else is yuppy double speak.

Terms you don't necessarily understand aren't automatically yuppy double speak. They may actually indicate there's an entire industry behind what it is you're trying to have a conversation about.

Redundancy, resilience, load balancing, cache, RAID, CDNs, DNS, I could go on but I won't. These are all things I wouldn't expect an end-user to have a clue about but they are all things you are utilising every time you open your browser.

EIREHotspur wrote: »

"a 'developer' that can cobble together a basic website".
That's not a Developer....that's a Designer.

Not sure I'd agree there either. Unfortunately there's plenty of people out there that are neither designer or developer but have enough rudimentary knowledge of html and dreamweaver drag & drop database interactions to convince themselves (and occasionally an unfortunate client) that they can build DAFT for €300 and a packet of Taytos in 3 days.

EIREHotspur wrote: »

and someone that's able to build a scaleable/resilient/secure large scale web app.
Are you talking Web Apps now or Mobile Web Apps.

There isn't much difference between web apps and mobile web apps, in fact increasingly they are one and the same presented via a responsive design.

EIREHotspur wrote: »

People who can do actual Apps with original features have software coding skills...there are off the shelf solutions again if you wanted to do Apps.

There are COTS (commercial off the shelf) solutions available for many popular App segments. Just look for any successful first-to-market web site and there's nearly always a 'clone' script/package available to do a similar thing. They can be fantastic for testing a market.

Problems only arise when you have a non-technical client being 'assisted' either by the salesman of the script or by someone who has no commercial experience beyond a few basic WordPress sites and a cobbled together mobile app.

beauf

https://blog.donedeal.ie/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/DoneDeal-Case-Study-Jan-2010.pdf

For many start-ups, a deficit of technical skills represents an early challenge. This was
not an issue for DoneDeal.ie. Fred is a software developer who began designing and
selling computer games as a 15-year-old in Sweden while Wexford born Geraldine
holds a computer science degree from Waterford Institute of Technology.
“Because we had the IT background, it was easy enough to put up the website.
Obviously it took a lot of work but we knew what we were doing and it didn’t cost us
anything because we did it all ourselves, so we were very lucky that way,” recalls Fred.

Food for thought.

mrnobodyfan87

kenk121 wrote: »

I have a great new website idea but have little knowledge of getting one set up or hosted etc. There is a similar website in the US but not in Ireland.

Hosting depends on how popular it is. Not very popular = cheap (20 euro/month), popular = expensive.

Getting one set up will be a big cost if it needs to be custom made. Like someone said previously, getting pre-made software and getting it modified/designed to suit your needs might be a good idea.

Also, are you sure the American company won't come in and crush you? :P

Peterdalkey

Hey Lads
It is sad to see the direction this thread is taking, it is not good to see some of our more expert posters throwing rocks. Step back and concentrate on giving your own opinion and suggestions. These threads where one post engenders a critique of that post made, always end up with the participants engaged in swinging dick The OP is generally long gone... Check out the recent Bitcoin thread to see what I am talking about!

beauf

I think the same point is being made by all. Just not from the same POV.

I think its summed up best by Graham

Graham wrote: »

...Kenk121, before you start throwing wads of cash at getting a web site built, get someone to help you with writing a proper business plan/spec. Preferably someone who isn't also offering to build you the website.

I think once you've done the business plan, the spec for the website will write itself. You'll know what you want from the website at that point.

EIREHotspur

Ok I will give my own opinion.

He needs an Accountant for the Business plan.

He needs a Web Developer he will have a good ongoing relationship with to build the website and add features as time goes on.

Any Web Developer worth their salt will build a Website with good a relational Database and good Content Management system with control over everything.

He could start off small and If his website is successful in the long term future and he needs robust solution with ◦Dedicated Hosting the most he will pay is around €350 a month.

What is the difference between the National carzone.ie and coltonmotors.ie in Tullamore??

The carzone.ie website has a bigger backend relational database and a bigger budget starting off.
Get the database design right starting off and it scales easily going forward.

There is no great mystique with Web Development despite what someone charging many of thousands of euro will tell you.....it isn't as difficult as Game Development coding.

One person can develop a website such as those whereas if one guy was working on Call Of Duty you would be waiting 20 years or more for your next version because that is actually very difficult to develop.

beauf

EIREHotspur wrote: »

...What is the difference between the National carzone.ie and coltonmotors.ie in Tullamore??...

No idea. Seems to be no connection between either site (or indeed the topic). They are owned by the same massive media group now.

Carzone was started by another person with a IT Development background and built by (his?) web design company. Then bought by Trader Media Group after it was successful.

http://www.worky.com/peter-crowley

ColtonMotors is a generic dealer site done by Trader Media Group a massive media organisation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trader_Media_Group

A lot of smart and savvy people no doubt.

jmcc

EIREHotspur wrote: »

Graham I am from the midlands so you will have to forgive me for not being into the whole Web Development speak.....like software engineering or any of those hi filuting terms that people like to blind non tech people with.

They are not high faluting terms that people use to blind non-tech people. When you are running large scale websites they are very real issues. The people working on them have to know what creates bottlenecks in software, the effects of changing the way a program works with the rest of the site, whether it is better to scale a database up with one very high power multiprocessor database server, lots of RAM and harddrives, or to scale out with a master/slaves model with smaller, less powerful servers, whether a site can be designed to scale horizontally so that the problem of extra users can be dealt with by firing up a few extra servers.

Like Ironclaw says in simple plain every day English.
"Donedeal or Daft isn't actually that complex".

The thing about such sites is that people see the frontend and think that these are not very complex sites. What they don't see are the servers behind it, the administrative interfaces, the backup systems, the redundant servers, the database servers, the people administering the site, the marketing people etc. On the surface, Boards.ie might look like just another web forum. At first glance, a random web developer/designer might think that they can stick up a copy of VBulletin on shared hosting and have the same thing going. However when you look at things like the active users statistic (3,050 (918 registered, 2,132 guests) ) on the front page, the similarities fall away.

Then there are the search engines. That's something that a lot of small scale site developers don't really have to think about. Using the dodgy 'site:' operator on Google, site:daft.ie has about 11.8 million results. Donedeal has about 2.8 million. Boards.ie has 5.4 million. Carzone.ie has 1.94 million. Depending on what is running on the site (Adsense, Google Analytics etc), there can be three page loads (or more) from search engines for each human user page load.

This guy doesn't want to hear complicated jargon....anything else is yuppy double speak.

It really isn't yuppy doublespeak. Most of the suggestions have been to develop a business plan, do some research into the market and perhaps build a proof of concept model.

This is a very valuable exercise because not only will it provide an indication of the size and profitability of the market, it will also allow the problem to be quantified. That's one of the most important aspects of building a large website for the developer (and perhaps the owner): defining the numbers of users, the size of the site and the complexity of the site.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

Peterdalkey wrote: »

Hey Lads
It is sad to see the direction this thread is taking, it is not good to see some of our more expert posters throwing rocks.

The problem is that it is easy to build such a site on a small scale that is capable of handling one or two simultaneous users. However when traffic increases after a successful marketing campaign, the shortcomings of that small scale design become apparent and the server crashes. The business then has a bigger problem on its hands - it has lost credibility and has given its better designed opponents the customers that couldn't get through. And those customers might not come back. It can be better, and cheaper in the long run, to get the design right from the start.

These two threads are worth reading. They are by the guy who built the Plenty of Fish website. They provide some insight for the development/early stage of such a site.

How he cleared $1 million in three months.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum89/13958.htm

The technical side:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum23/4496.htm

Technically, some things have changed since then but they are very good examples of what can be done.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

EIREHotspur wrote: »

Get the database design right starting off and it scales easily going forward.

Ordinarily, I would agree. This is very difficult to do without knowing the size of the site and the types and numbers of queries that will be run against the database each second. That's why it is important to do the business plan and specification work first.

Regards...jmcc

EIREHotspur

Of course it is against boards.ie policy to attack anyone or their point of view on here so I won't.

I doubt very much that the people at donedeal.ie care about server problems...they admin their websites and they pay their Hosting company for that....??
They tell them in laymans terms what they want and if they can handle X amount of visitors going forward.

I don't hand over a DVD to a client and start going into how I opened the video clips and converted them to .mxf files to bring into Adobe Premiere where I could colour correct them with Magic Bullet Looks and then link effects to them from After Effects......etc etc etc...
That to me is fascinating and interesting.....to a client it is high faluting nonsense and they are not interested.
People who want Websites cannot understand Web Developer speak...they are just not interested.....that's the fact of the matter.

The colton website filters queries from the carzone database based on their own stock....and the point being it is just a website with a large database running on an expensive Hosting package.

The size and type of the database starting off is determined by the Developer starting off...that's his job to determine....that's what he is getting paid to do. Anyone who has only done MTA Database Administrator Fundamentals will know that.

Listen...At the end of the day everyone is going to believe what they want to believe....more power to you.

Buttercake

People who want Websites cannot understand Web Developer speak...they are just not interested.....that's the fact of the matter.

A project of the scale like what the OP wants to do, he should be engaging a website development company who will have developers, designers but also an account manager or project manager who will liaise with the client in "non developer speak" and manage the project from start to finish.

Professional Web Developers no more want to deal direct with clients than clients deal with them, that why a web agency or company will have client managers.

If he wants to save money and hire Billy HTML from 1998, thats up to him.

jmcc

EIREHotspur wrote: »

Of course it is against boards.ie policy to attack anyone or their point of view on here so I won't.

I know I left my Filofax around here somewhere.

I doubt very much that the people at donedeal.ie care about server problems...they admin their websites and they pay their Hosting company for that....??
They tell them in laymans terms what they want and if they can handle X amount of visitors going forward.

Perhaps that's how it works with small scale websites but things are different when there is serious money at stake. The people running such a site might not need to be able to code or know SQL but they do generally have a working knowledge of what is required to make such a site function. They also tend to measure things. They need to know how they are making money, where they are making money and what needs to be done to continue making money.

I don't hand over a DVD to a client and start going into how I opened the video clips and converted them to .mxf files to bring into Adobe Premiere where I could colour correct them with Magic Bullet Looks and then link effects to them from After Effects......etc etc etc...
That to me is fascinating and interesting.....to a client it is high faluting nonsense and they are not interested.

This is the danger of extrapolating Multimedia expertise to running large, money making websites. With large websites, the management needs to understand how they are making money and the processes by which they make money. While the core idea behind a site might be non-technical, the site itself is an exercise in technology, software and business management. Perhaps, to labour the Multimedia point, it is the difference between producing a DVD for a client and producing a blockbuster movie. One is something that only a few people see, but the other is for a wider audience.

People who want Websites cannot understand Web Developer speak...they are just not interested.....that's the fact of the matter.

It is like you are confusing brochureware, cookiecutter websites which are rarely updated over a year with large scale, continually changing websites like Daft.ie and Donedeal.ie which consist primarily of user generated content. The clients are not idiots and should not be treated as such. With a large scale website, the developers generally have to be able to explain, in simplified terms, how it all works and why certain requirements apply. The clients also need to have some understanding of what is involved and have to be able to figure out if they can earn their money back on the investment and make a profit. The software, the technology and the business side of things all have to work together. Now that might sound like yuppy doublespeak but it is the reality of all technological companies.

The size and type of the database starting off is determined by the Developer starting off...that's his job to determine....that's what he is getting paid to do. Anyone who has only done MTA Database Administrator Fundamentals will know that.

I had to Google what "MTA Database Administrator Fundamentals". It apparently is "MTA Database Administration Fundamentals" from Microsoft - an introduction to databases from Microsoft using Microsoft SQL Server. The problem with thinking that it is just the "developer" specifying the requirements for the database and letting everything run away from there is this: the database is only part of the site. It all has to work together (the database, the website and the rest) and more than one person has to be able to use the database at a time. Sometimes, the early iteration of the database design (schema) will have to be changed because it may not scale well. A database table with a few hundred rows of data might work well with certain queries but when you get to thousands or millions of rows of data other constraints kick in and you can spend more time simplifying queries to the database as well as figuring out how to make the database more responsive. But that's what people don't see with large websites. They only thing that they should see is that the site provides what they want and quickly. That's where all the other work enters the equation.

Regards...jmcc

EIREHotspur

jmcc wrote: »

I know I left my Filofax around here somewhere.

Perhaps that's how it works with small scale websites but things are different when there is serious money at stake. The people running such a site might not need to be able to code or know SQL but they do generally have a working knowledge of what is required to make such a site function. They also tend to measure things. They need to know how they are making money, where they are making money and what needs to be done to continue making money.

Well which are you talking about....Developers who have built and maintain, add features to the website....or users who add content such as cars, houses or products to these websites?
One is paid to know this stuff and the other just adds content...where is the need of the user to know the Developers job?

jmcc wrote: »

This is the danger of extrapolating Multimedia expertise to running large, money making websites. With large websites, the management needs to understand how they are making money and the processes by which they make money. While the core idea behind a site might be non-technical, the site itself is an exercise in technology, software and business management.

Management know they are making money by their profit/loss sheet or stats they are given as to how many cars, houses or products were sold on their website. They either have Web Developers in house on the payroll or outsourced to another company.
They pay Developers to know the Technology, software and advise them as to how that helps them maximise profits based on features or workflow.

jmcc wrote: »

It is like you are confusing brochureware, cookiecutter websites which are rarely updated over a year with large scale, continually changing websites like Daft.ie and Donedeal.ie which consist primarily of user generated content. The clients are not idiots and should not be treated as such. With a large scale website, the developers generally have to be able to explain, in simplified terms, how it all works and why certain requirements apply. The clients also need to have some understanding of what is involved and have to be able to figure out if they can earn their money back on the investment and make a profit. The software, the technology and the business side of things all have to work together. Now that might sound like yuppy doublespeak but it is the reality of all technological companies.

My Dear chap I have been developing websites for over 10 years...I don't confuse brochure (or graveyard websites as I call them) with serious Dynamic Websites. Clients are not idiots...which is why it makes them uncomfortable to be made feel like idiots if you talk in terms that they don't understand...that's my experience...maybe it is different in the people you deal with.

jmcc wrote: »

I had to Google what "MTA Database Administrator Fundamentals". It apparently is "MTA Database Administration Fundamentals" from Microsoft - an introduction to databases from Microsoft using Microsoft SQL Server. The problem with thinking that it is just the "developer" specifying the requirements for the database and letting everything run away from there is this: the database is only part of the site. It all has to work together (the database, the website and the rest) and more than one person has to be able to use the database at a time. Sometimes, the early iteration of the database design (schema) will have to be changed because it may not scale well. A database table with a few hundred rows of data might work well with certain queries but when you get to thousands or millions of rows of data other constraints kick in and you can spend more time simplifying queries to the database as well as figuring out how to make the database more responsive. But that's what people don't see with large websites. They only thing that they should see is that the site provides what they want and quickly. That's where all the other work enters the equation.

Like I said...I know how the structure of a large database needs to be right starting off because data redundancy is not desirable and it is difficult to change this later on. It is more about optimizing your SQL queries so that multiple users aren't accessing simultaneously but these big websites have a great budget behind them and sometimes have multiple servers handling the load.
Websites like Carzone.ie have not changed that much in years because database info is pretty much the same - make, year, milage etc

Look I know you know your stuff jmcc...I know my stuff although maybe not as much as you in web development because I do many other things besides that.

My whole point is Business people hire Web Developers for a reason.

Peterdalkey

It is interesting that Carzone and the UK Autotrader have the same owner, as a petrolhead I use both. I find the UK site is infinitely superior in layout and features to the Irish offering. I wonder why? More competition in the UK?

jmcc

EIREHotspur wrote: »

Well which are you talking about....Developers who have built and maintain, add features to the website....or users who add content such as cars, houses or products to these websites?
One is paid to know this stuff and the other just adds content...where is the need of the user to know the Developers job?

The people on the development side and the people on the management side. Not the end users. The management has to be able to describe what it wants to do and the developers have to be able to do it or explain why it is not a good idea.

Management know they are making money by their profit/loss sheet or stats they are given as to how many cars, houses or products were sold on their website. They either have Web Developers in house on the payroll or outsourced to another company.

And that is one of the landmines for such a venture. If the design isn't well done at the start, then fixing the problems later could sink the company. It really gets back to doing the business plan and the research into the market first and then proceeding with the web development.

Like I said...I know how the structure of a large database needs to be right starting off because data redundancy is not desirable and it is difficult to change this later on.

The only certainty seems to be that the database schema will evolve. The problem with dealing with a poorly documented initial design at some time in the future is that you have to figure out what the developer was trying to do and how they were doing it. That's one of the major issues with outsourced development.

It is more about optimizing your SQL queries so that multiple users aren't accessing simultaneously but these big websites have a great budget behind them and sometimes have multiple servers handling the load.

That was one of the biggest problems of the last fifteen or so years - the idea that software problems could be solved by throwing hardware resources at them. (That Plenty of Fish technical thread is worth reading as it shows how someone technicallly clueful can use a more elegant approach to achieve the same results as large companies thowing loads of hardware and software at the same problem.) Some large websites don't have great budgets for software and hardware and try to grow naturally by sinking the profits back into the business.

Websites like Carzone.ie have not changed that much in years because database info is pretty much the same - make, year, milage etc

People generally only see the end results on screen but not the database schema and queries. They don't know if the schema has changed.

My whole point is Business people hire Web Developers for a reason.

I'm not disagreeing with that point. The point I was making was that the people who want to build and run large sites as a business have to have a working knowledge of what they want to achieve and be able to tell the developers what they want. (This gets back to the business plan and market research.) It does require some learning as well as investment. If you look at the people who developed some of the large and successful sites, they all seem to have a clear idea of what they want to achieve and at least a working knowledge of what is required to achieve it. I'm sure you've had people who have seen eBay, Groupon or Netflix and have approached you to see if you can build something similar.

Regards...jmcc