creating kijiji.com and craigslist.org

Questions regarding this site!

[wantfieldh]

Couple of buddies and I are planning for a site very similar to www.craigslist.org. It will be basically a classified ad + Community Forum site.

ONly twist to it will be that it will include photo gallary uploadable from the admin side only as well as in both Chinese and English.

Does anyone know what is the best approach to build a site like this and possibly the cost invovled. I have been posting the project on GetAFreelancer.com and been getting quotes from $2500 to $100.. average is about 500. What is a reasonable price? I guess any insight on this project will be sincerely appreciated.

Maybe something on the business aspect of these sites would be helpful as well.

Thanks

[moltar]

I'd say it's a lot more than $2,500 if done by professional. I'd be cautions about $100 type offers.

[wantfieldh]

What type of work are involved? Wouldn't these program be free already, which you can download? It be a little generic, but works right?

[rogerd]

Some coders will bid just about every job at $100... Microsoft could probably solicit quotes for completing Longhorn, and two or three coders would come in at $100. ;)

In my experience, the best way to sort out the bids is to look at the types of projects the bidders have worked on in the past and the feedback they have received. The feedback should be outstanding, and they should have gotten the feedback on some projects at least as complex as yours.

Watch out for coders with very little history, or who have good feedback but mostly on tiny projects. I've gotten burned whenever I took a chance on someone new who looked promising but had only been freelancing for a month or two. Ideally, you want someone who makes a long term living by freelancing, not someone trying to pick up beer money in between jobs.

[wantfieldh]

Appreciate your help Moltar and Rogerd...

I what would be the best approach for these type of site?

MySQL and PHP?

Thanks

Also I have a question.. Eventually when we have all these local advertisements.. Whats a good way to let my customers (advertisers) know that their advertisment with us is effective. That is if someone call them base on our website, how can I make sure that my customers know the referal came from my website.

Since my customers will mostly be local Attornies, banks, cellphone, restaruents.. they won't have a website so i can't track the per click amount. What would be a good way to track their ROI?

Thanks!

Richard

[John3478]

Community is very common in a lot of open source using MYSQL and PHP.

[wantfieldh]

So.. $500 is around the ball park, to put together a site like that?

[HughMungus]

Do you know anything about PHP and mysql? Sounds really easy to me.

[wantfieldh]

NOpe I know nothing about either language.

Got a friend who knows a little about it.. just the theory part, not really in practice..

I know its difficult trying to start this without knowning the language.. but thats exactly why it will be a local search. I guess in this business model, local networking is more important than promoting the website on the net. SEO or what not.

[HughMungus]

Well, if you don't already know how to do it, then just contract it. I do that on stuff that I get stuck on.

[wantfieldh]

Yup.. thats what everyone should do.

I don't know of any alternative : )

[wantfieldh]

So how does these classified add usually generates revenue?

How about traffic?

[rfung]

craigslist generates its revenue with the jobs postings on its site.

as far as traffic - that's the million dollar question, isn't it?

word of mouth probably plays a big part...