what would this concept require.

[MrP8ntball]

What will this concept take...
I don't want to give away my idea but I have a good analogy for it. Im hoping I can describe this project and get a good idea of what this website will take so I can find professionals qualified in these areas/skills.

Imagine a dating service, or something like www.facebook.com, which supports numerous users each with their own account. Each user gets a profile about them and all users can search for others and read their profiles. People can search by location, by gender, by age, etc (lots of search criterias) and sift through potential mates. In addition to this, after each date , the two members can leave feedback and reviews about their dates which will be available to everyone to see.

Now keep in mind my idea has nothing to do with dating. Its just that this scenario accurately gets across what my website will have to do. I dont have a much better "technical" way of explaining it because frankly im a Neuroscience/accounting major going to dental school...enough said.

Anything you can bounce off me on this topic is appreciated. Things im interested in are:

1. the appropriate programming (if thats the right term; i.e javascript, php, sql, whatever it requires for this site).
2. if something like this can be done with a rollout strategy. i.e with the capability to support say 1000 users and then later expand the site to support like 20,000 users. Would this be a prudent way to handle the project?
3. the ball park costs
4. where I could find professional developers for this project

[lcampers]

sounds like a pretty easy thing to build actually, you can find price quotes online using a bulleton board like this one or craigslist, and you'll get lots of responses.

Your site shouldn't take more than 1000 to build or so, probably less if it's just what you say.

[Moosetick]

Here's a guess, but is your idea a dating type service but for rating dentists?

Anyway, that site could be made using free tools like php and mysql. A competent person should be able to program the meat of it in 40 hours. Pictures/logos/design can take more time depending on how picky you are.

You can put this project out for bid at elance.com or rentacoder.com.

Hosting will run you $15-$100/month depending on how reliable you want it.

Driving traffic to the site will be the real trick though.