i want to create a community website...?

[electrick]

i want to create a community website that has these features:member blogs, message boards, calender, etc.
how hard would it be and is it that expensive?
know of any good webhosters that would be good for this?

[madvirus]

I would suggest http://ning.com... I've been using ning for almost a year now for my community website: http://www.sanrafael.ning.com

It's a free ready to use networking site which has features such as, members, blogs, chat, groups, forum, playlist. the members may upload their favorite photos, videos and songs. You are the administrator so therefore you have the total control over your members...

To use it, you don't need to have much experience in programming or web development, but having some is a great advantage. You may download the code and customize the way how your site looks...

Your site name will be www.yoursitename.ning.com but if you want to use your own domain you may purchase it for as low as $4.95/month...

Hope you would like it, as what I do...
Good luck!

[William Lower]

Drupal would be perfect for your needs. It's a CMS (content management system), which is basically a framework for a website that you can totally customize with templates, and add features like member blogs, message boards, and calendars. You can check out what Drupal is at www.drupal.org

As for hosting, you can get a free Drupal host with ads at freedrupal5hosting.com. They're really easy to set up, and quite easy to understand.

If you want even more control and no ads, you can pay for a Drupal host, but a free one would be great for just seeing how it could work for you. Just Google 'Drupal Host' to find a paid one.

Hope this helps, and I'd love to see any site you create!

[Tina V]

You can find step by step guide on how to create a website below.

oktutorial.com (http://oktutorial.com/webdesign.htm)