vesp

Also agree with grace. A simpler way to create and engage community (Google Groups, Posterous Groups, ...) may be enough for the early alpha stage.

About the software, I'd usually go with the "use existing software" approach. However, with the specs outlined (game mechanics and so on) there's also a big risk on ending creating a big patch "hacking" the existing software.

A third option in between would be to use some kind of framework as Django (or Ruby) with as much already done apps for the functionality as possible. For example, a comparison page for forum appz solutions on Django: http://djangopackages.com/grids/g/forums/

Wow, I'm speechless about your contribution! Thank you very much!

I'm the founder of VisualizeUs (http://visualizeus.com), a social bookmarking site for images, and we're in the same situation as endlessvoid94, so the information in your posts is extremely valuable. Right now we aren't monetizing all our traffic properly (900K unique visitors last month, 10M pageviews last month, 51% of the traffic is from US, and you'd laughed about the total revenues!). We have adsense and direct sale to small sponsors, but without any special work on selling the spots (two people just to run all the site).

We're looking for an ad network to monetize our traffic. As you can see our public is creative young people that loves pictures and visual culture, and thus not any graphical ad could fit on there. In fact, to prove that point, the two sponsors we have right now on the small spots, they have a huuge difference on clicks just because of the creativity and theme.

We've just applied to IndieClick, and I'll explore some of the options you mention in your post, including the adnetwork you're working at, as I think it fits into our public ;) I'd appreciate any tip or special suggestion from you, as your opinion is very valuable! Truth is, as a hacker, I'm so new to all this ad world, and feel kind of lost sometimes ;)

Also I'm open to share any info that can be helpful of course!

Nice idea!

@visualizeus : Social bookmarking for pictures

http://visualizeus.com

Same for me, minimal config here:

  set tabstop=4
  set expandtab
  set list
  set listchars=tab:>.
  hi Comment ctermfg=darkgray
  syntax enable

ps: Glad to see I'm not the only Vim geek around here! ;)

Agree. Seriously, don't know what they're waiting to commit this to the trunk. IMHO the template system in Django is too restricted and should get some steroids, despite the designer point of keeping it simple. I think you can get the best from both worlds.