Can this community site be done?

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1

Ok, I have exhausted myself looking around at scripts, both paid and free, wordpress, etc. I want to take this question to the forum. I would like to create a community website that will be free, until popular, then I can begin charging for certain services.

What I want:

  • Forum
  • Classified Ads
  • News/Articles
  • Coupons/Deals
  • Business Directory

ALL IN ONE SITE. I would be great if users could create ONE account to access all functions.

I would also like some social media functions that would allow users to share articles, or the site itself immediately to facebook.

Is this possible in a box software, or must I install multiple scripts and force users to create 3+ separate accounts?

Thank you for your time.

Shannon

2

Have a look at Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionpower.com)

It started as a forum solution, but it has modules for loads of other stuff and it has a deep hook plugin system for extensions; of which there are many, and there is an active modding community who will create extensions for you.

In summary it has a number of modules:

  1. Forum (which is the core of it really)
  2. Nexus (which is for commerce and subscriptions)
  3. Blog (obviously for blogging)
  4. Gallery (obviously for galleries)
  5. Content (which is a content management system)
  6. Chat (for chat rooms)
  7. Downloads (for file sharing)

So the forum module would cover your forum, blog and/or content modules would cover your news articles, I believe there are a number of classified ad extensions.

For the coupons; either an extension (from their extension exchange or paid development).

For business directory, I’m sure there is an extension for that.

Alternatively there is vBulletin (www.vbulletin.com) which is similar to IPB in the sense that its primarily a forum, has a deep hook plugin system, an active modding community, has modules for social tools and cms. I used to really like vBulletin but since the original team left (after selling to a larger company) its gone downhill a fair bit.

The alternative would be to use something like Expression Engine or use a framework and go bespoke (but I’d avoid the obvious Joomla and Drupal personally and go Expression Engine if I were using a 3rd party framework). Though that would be very expensive.