Re: Are We Wasting Our Time?
I’m with David and nexia. Try it. I think there is room for a site that groups social communities. For example, Meetup.com is a generic site that allows you to create a social gathering around say hiking. But once you join, you learn about gatherings around mountain biking. Because it’s likely that hikers may mountain-bike, by putting the two together you’ve added value. Putting them together makes it easier for people to find each other and interact. This is true with some sports sites as well. I could see that model working. Check out communityengine.org which uses Ruby. This is just a collection of communities based on the interests of the developer, but the concept could be expanded.
MU and Buddypress could get this stuff done but be prepared for extensive plugin development. If you have funding, that shouldn’t be that bad.
As for the viability of the service, the model lately has been grow fast through viral exposure of a simple, free service. Once critical mass is achieved, anything is possible (or so the model suggests). Monetization is almost secondary, so you need deep pockets (particularly to take on media). Protection from competition is based on size, installed user base and acquisition of content (e.g. videos).
I’d say go for it, but start with maybe 3 networks. I’m using Buddypress because I have background in PHP/MySQL and I don’t want to use Rails, but you might consider communityengine or something similar if you don’t care.
