Is SBI the best option for community website?

[Bambino]

Hi guys, it's my first post here. I'm seeking some advice about my website project.

I want a website were each user can have a little personal space like a blog to share his/her progress with the community. I'd like to do this either with :
-Joomla CMS + the community builder component + the MyBlog component
or:
-SBI + vBulletin Blog
I'd like to use SBI for the promotion because I have almost no clue about how to promote a website. Is it possible to use vBulletin with SBI?
On the other hand, I'd like to use joomla! because that's what I know best technically speaking.

So in your opinion, which one of the two is the best option?

Thanks for your help

[lisa]

Hi Bambino,

No, SBI! is best for mainly content-driven sites. If you want a community-based site it's better to use a regular host. I will caution you though, community sites are not the best way to start if you're new to website building. First, they are quite complex to build and maintain and if you are new to marketing they can be tricky to promote.

I'd recommend starting with something a little more simple, then once you learn how to build traffic then tackle a community-driven site. Just some advice from my own experience.

[Bambino]

Thanks for your answer Lisa. I also read your blog article "The Next Myspace" and found it very insightful.

I think that if I want to commit really to making money online I'll go for SBI. However for now I have much more excitment and fun doing this community website. I'll just do it in order to learn and know that it will probably have a little audience and be mainly for me and my friends. With that in mind I'll definitely go for Joomla! and MyBlog as it is much cheaper.

But maybe in a few months, if I'm still enjoying so much the website creation world, I'll go for a money making site with SBI!

I think this forum is great by the way

[lisa]

Sounds good! Good luck and let us know how your site is going.

[Bambino]

Hi guys !

Here's a little bump on this thread to let you know how my site is going.

Well, it's been running for more than three months now.
Here is the link : http://goalz.fr
I did it with Joomla finally. There are around 80 members to my site, so it's ok but I'm not going to make money with it early , as expected.

However, it doesn't matter because I'm having great fun doing it for now. Maybe later I'll go for a content driven site and use SBI to try make money with a site.

Thanks for your advice Lisa
Alban

[lisa]

Hi Bambino,

That's great your site is doing well. If you'd like someone to review your site then head on over to the Review Forum and people will offer suggestions, etc. Glad you were able to launch your site!