Need advice on first Dolphin website

Hello guys. I'm totally new to Dolphin and to Boonex. Any advice or answers to my questions will really be appreciated. I intend to build something very, very large and valuable. So, let me explain what's going on.

I will be building a social community for musicians. They will be able to upload their bio info, photos, videos etc.

Details:

1) I expect to have 1'000s of members.

2) Members will have the option of a free membership, free trial membership or paying monthly, quarterly or annually. 

3) They will be uploading a minimum of 1 video each (OR, can they place their video on Youtube and I can Link to there)?

Here are a few questions that I have:

A) What is the best place to host? If this is successful, I foresee using a lot of bandwidth.

B) I need a developer/website builder to help me with this project. Do any of you know someone who has the needed experience to build this for me (I'm in Los Angeles, so it may be best if they are in the U.S.)? Here is the site that I believe I want to mimic (not all, but a lot of): http://www.charismamodels.com/     It is a Boonex site.

Can anyone tell me what theme that site is using?

Thanks to anyone who can help me. I'm new to this and after reading the forum, I understand that their is a steep learning curve and that it's very easy to get ripped off. Thanks again, Philip Cardwell

First off, welcome from a fellow no0b.  I am also in the process of developing my first boonex site and have similar goals and issues, such as large membership numbers, various levels of memberships, etc.  

While I am unable to help with much of the technical questions, I am happy to share my limited knowledge and hope it helps.  There are some here who have vastly superior knowledge, in fact one of the more helpful people here has already posted in response to your thread.  Frankly, its more than I have gotten in the few threads I have posted looking for (what should be) simple answers.

Given your site's objective you may very well need the ability to have direct uploads that you will host on your system.  Understand that this will lead to higher capacity needs, along with the higher associated costs.  You will probably need RMS as well if you go that direction.  If you choose to go a different direction, and just allow audio/video content to be linked from other sources, it will save you time and money however if you want these other sources to be more than just youtube there is at least one marketplace mod that you will need (feel free to PM me for details if you can't find it).

As for a qualified developer, make sure you get one you can trust and feel comfortable working with.  The script is very buggy and you need someone who is very familiar with it, as well as the marketplace mods you intend to add.  In doing my due diligence before starting my site I spoke to several developers.  Some were qualified but lacked the qualities for someone I personally wanted to work with, others appeared to be rip-off artists.  The developer I ended up hiring has a reputation of being one of the best, and he is based in North America.  I would be happy to put you in direct contact with him, but want him to finish with my project first (he should hopefully be done with mine in the next two months) before he picks up more work.

If you want to contact me via PM, I'll gladly give you the names of those developers I felt most comfortable with when speaking to them about my project, or those who came highly recommended but weren't available to be hired at the time.  

Best of luck with your venture, and if I can be of any assistance do not hesitate to ask.  During my months of research prior to pulling the trigger to have my site built, I identified numerous issues, both technical and business related, that needed to be addressed.  Perhaps some of my homework can benefit your learning curve a bit.

I apologise for that.  Either I did not see them or did not have an answer at the time.  Different time zones and work schedules can sometime see forum posts slide off the front page before someone can come in and answer them.  It is advisable that if a few days have passed without an answer, to "bump" your post by making a reply; this will move it back into view.

 LOL, like I did with this one?

http://www.boonex.com/forums/topic/-Weighed-placement-in-Search-results.htm

...and while I hardly had been sitting by waiting for you specifically to reply, I was certainly hoping that someone in the know would have.  and on a side note, while this is our first interaction with each other, I have read a ton of threads in these forums over the past 6 or so months and I thank you for you contributions and general helpfulness.  Quite a few of your posts on this board have answered my questions, some of which I didn't even realize I had ;)

...and the dream will go on.

On a serious note, did you do a research to see if there are sites like that out there? How they do it ? What they offer? What can you do to make your site stand out? What will make the visitors to join and pay your site instead of the current ones?

Please do a research before wasting your time and money.

 and I thought my attitude was bad..

Welcome to dolphin.....

I dont wish to burst anyones bubble but... there are many many sites like this, many of which are on dolphin. I have even worked on some and none are doing anything.... Considder your options before proceeding, as I would hate to see anyone else throw their hard earned cash down the shit hole.

If you do decide to continue with your plans look for uniqueness on your site. Dont just fill it with the bands modules and video posting modules and expect it to do well - it wont! Instead invest in a complete custom setup of modules that no other site has (a functionality that is needed by musicians)....

Good luck with it anyways.....

I have to agree with DRautenbach ... There are many similar sites ... As nice as it is to think your idea is unique and many many people will come I can certainly tell you that it is not at all easy and if you Google for sites like you suggest the competition is HUGE.

Making your site unique is a MUST plus unless you are seriously good at SEO, have a lot unique quality content or Plenty of cash to spend on advertising etc ... From day 1 you will see its a massive battle to even get and keep a few people let alone becoming recognized and active.

I don't want to knock what you are doing or your ideas but you need to understand that (1) building a site is easy (2) Making it unique is not so easy (3) growing it into a known and well used network is impossible for 80% of webmasters and I'm not joking!

Please don't see this as an attack ... but an eye opener from myself and others who truly know what is involved to get where you would like to see yourself ...

I do wish you every luck but be ready for one BIG looonnnnggggg haul ...

Also the website you would like to base your own site on (as far as template) is owned by a developer ... I am sure the template is unique and built by him for his business ... hence not available on the market..

There are many of us seasoned dolphin webmasters and each have own knowledge and experience as far as dolphin, seo, the internet and everything else so if you need any help at all just ask in forums here ;)

Thank you for the responses. This is very well thought out and I'm in a very unique position http://www.linkedin.com/in/philipcardwell/  that will almost assure the success of the new site. There will be nothing else on the market, that provides the services that my site will provide. It is directly tied to my crowdfunding company.

My advertising costs are very, very inexpensive. I've been doing that for years. My Facebook specialist has my CPC down to .04 to .06 and I issues tons of press releases. I'm also in the business and directly tied to many who will automatically sign up for the site.

So far as the "template being owned by a developer"{as Detective08 stated}, how can I find this developer or someone else who can build or sell me the template?

Thanks

Hello again .... Excellent ! I can see you are indeed in unique position and with good support / team behind you!

I have helped with crowd funding in the United Kingdom before, helping those seeking funding to get other people and local businesses behind them backing their ideas and pledging funds. Great stuff what you do there for sure!

OK the owner of the site you mentioned can be found here:-  Charisma

Again I wish you the best and look forward to seeing the end result of your work ...

Best Regards, Josh D

Hi Phil, while I can see why others are saying your site may not be unique, I can tell you that none of the sites I have built that have been successful have been totally unique... as you say, its more about your position and ability to make it work with your chosen market.

As for your questions in the post, here's a few replies.

1) I expect to have 1'000s of members.

2) Members will have the option of a free membership, free trial membership or paying monthly, quarterly or annually. 

3) They will be uploading a minimum of 1 video each (OR, can they place their video on Youtube and I can Link to there)?

The module - http://www.boonex.com/m/Dolphin_7_Membership_Subscriptions_Module 

Does the job. Allows recurring monthly payments that you have full control over setting up. Very simple to do.

Also allows you to set user actions and limit the to a time basis (in hours) so if you can work out how many hours in a month, you can work out how many 'add video' actions a user can place in 1 month.

Here are a few questions that I have:

A) What is the best place to host? If this is successful, I foresee using a lot of bandwidth.

You will get a different answer from each user for this... I use Host For Web on a dedicated plan. I self manage my server. Having said that, HFW support has always been very good to me. 

B) I need a developer/website builder to help me with this project. Do any of you know someone who has the needed experience to build this for me (I'm in Los Angeles, so it may be best if they are in the U.S.)? Here is the site that I believe I want to mimic (not all, but a lot of): http://www.charismamodels.com/     It is a Boonex site.

Many users on the site here could help do that, if they have the time and if you are paying their time! 

Can anyone tell me what theme that site is using?

Think its a custom template. It's also Dolphin 6! Fairly easy to get something similar built though.

Hope it works out for you, feel free to ask any other questions and welcome to the community :-)

SingleBooklovers.com --> dolphin jay did the template for me. I have been through a lot with this type of site, first was using Joomla and then switched to Dolphin a few years ago. At first I thought I might have gone from the frying pan into the fire.

Some things... you are going to have to spend the money to make your site unique... You are going to have to spend a lot of money advertising your site in places other than the web. As a matter of fact, I now do 90% of my advertising in print media. I know its not click and go, but, it seems much more reliable and targeted.

I tried facebook ads and as soon as I filtered to those 35 and over, the likes started drying up. However, I  have liked pages on FB and then post a url to my FB page and or SingleBooklovers.com. Again, I got much better quality of member.

Like most "dating" sites, you can join for free, but need to upgrade to be able to do much of anything else..

Unlike most "dating" sites I am working on building a community with forums and such...

Best of luck... Single Booklovers was founded in 1970. It did very well for awhile, but they got way behind on their internet presence. I acquired the rights to the business in december 2012. And lets see what happens... :)