Social Networking / Virtual Community Scripts

I have been thinking of next year’s projects lately. Some thoughts that have crossed my mind have been an employment site, a real estate listing site and a social networking site. I did quite a bit of research tonight on the last one…the social networking thing.

I came across a bunch of them…

– phpFox
– Buddy Zone
– AlstraSoft efriends
– Dzoic’s Handshakes
– PHPizabi
– Elgg
– Boonex Dolphin
– Barnraiser
– Drupal

Believe it or not, I crossed all these off my list for one reason or another. No one had anything bad to say about Drupal, besides the fact that it is a bit hard to learn and that you need to be an expert to get a few things done. Otherwise, at least one person had something to say about all the others. You wouldn’t believe how many fake reviews there are out there about all these pieces of software.

One big turnoff about the whole project idea was how so many people fought with each other over which script was better than the others. It makes me not believe any of them. Fake reviews…fighting forums…dealing with a website that a bunch of people may actually live on…not too attractive. Still, I am interested.

So, I may be looking for a partner for this one. I need someone who has something in the works, someone who is better than me (right). If you know of anyone who is already in on this topic, please let me know.

Oh yeah, the script (whether it be custom made or a package) needs to be php/mysql.