Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello,

I am in the process of starting my business and want to know when building the website how difficult will it be to have an internal messaging system? By this i mean i want people to be able to register, up date their profile and edit when nececarry and then be able to message eachother through the site but never exposing any of their e-mail or profile details.When users do e-mail eachother i want noticification to then be sent to their actual e-mail account.I ideally want it to be heavily dependant on automated e-mails.

I have been told that to implament this is difficult and very costly, can anyone share any opinions or advice on this?

Thanks,

Labno

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`I dont want to be a product of my Environment, i want my Environement to be a product of me`

The type of interaction can be done with a few FREE programs/scripts. You can set up a message board (similar to SUN). There are a few programs like PhpBB which is open source..where you can make the whole forum or parts private.

A lot of website hosts provide such forum scripts and set-up free.

~Roland

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

Is it very difficult? That depends if you know how to do serverside scripting.... if you know something like PHP or ASP.Net then no it isnt very difficult to do, though would be fairly time consuming and so if you are paying a developer to create a bespoke script for you then it would have a fairly significant price tag attached to it.

There are certainly free scripts that can do most things but it can require some editing of the script when you are trying to use multiple scripts together as most assume a certain database structure and 2 free scripts may require a different structure "out the box" to each other... it can also be difficult to find a script that does exactly what you are wanting (eg when some receives a new message do you want their notification email to tell them who it is from? give any of the message itself? etc)  


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Astaroth Solutions - Bespoke web development

PhpBB - fourm (and others) does everything you have descriibed.

You do not need to know any php. It is fairly easy to set up... as I said before, installation is "automatic" with some web hosts.

There are some things to know about how you want access to be set-up... like what you wnat private or not, who you want to provide access and control... but non or that required php programming knowledge.

~Roland

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

Thanks for the replies.It is not exactly a forum required but more of a way for Property vendors to interact with eachother whilst protecting their privacy during early stages of negotiation.The idea is people upload their Property details by registering, a buyer registers when intrested in a property creating usernames and the ability to interact within their acount with the vendor.When a message is sent by the internal message system an e-mail is sent to the users private e-mail just reminding them that they have a message.The idea is to make it as self sufficient as possible and protect the privacy of the users.My web designer did mention php. and echoed the opinions of AstarothSolutions.

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`I dont want to be a product of my Environment, i want my Environement to be a product of me`

Ah, I see... sounds more like you need a Real estate script... also avialable.

I would think you web person would know what is available to meet your need.

~Roland

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

Depending how much of the site is developed in terms of user registration etc or if you are still at the blank sheet of paper stage will dictate if it is more cost effective to get/ buy an off the shelf solution and customise it or build something from scratch. To be honest it isnt that great a job to do at all and if I were quoting on a complete solution then the addition of this functionality would be a relatively small increase (hours rather than days/ weeks of man power).

Your developer should be discussing with you both the financial implications of both routes and other pro`s and con`s. As we develop in ASP.Net and target clients requiring more unique solutions we would almost certainly be promoting the bespoke option however there are plenty of people who will have used an off the shelf solution many times and therefore it will be a quick and easy job for them to customise it as they are fully aware of how the script functions.     


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Astaroth Solutions - Bespoke web development

LBano,

You should take a look at inviterite.com. I am the co-founder and we are building an internal messaging system to serve the market with needs just like yours. We would love to hear your input and and feedback. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

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