Looking for a starting point for building a 'chat' application

ideaburst

Hi guys,

I have an idea for a website which would serve as a way to connect people via chat functionality. The closest comparison I have is Badoo, if you are familiar with it. Or, just Facebook chat, except you can chat with anyone else on the platform, not just friends.

Sign up would be via Facebook or Twitter (to encourage people to use their real identities).

I also have what I feel is quite a nifty idea as regards the presentation / design of the site, I will keep that to myself for now but suffice to say it would tie in perfectly with the overall concept and purpose for the site.

So my question is this - what kind of approach could I take to get a prototype or basic website in place? Is there an out of the box solution that you would recommend looking at? Ideally that would be something that looks fairly ok, and which we could customise with the help of a designer or developer.

It really is that age-old obstacle of not having much money to build something, but knowing that it could definitely attract a decent number of visitors starting out. It has a very definite niche whilst not being limited in terms of scope whatsoever (as there are plenty of people who I know would use it).

Would you have any recommendations for customisable chat solutions (perhaps out of the box, white label or otherwise) I could take a look at?

Thanks

Graham

There are many, many out of the box chat solutions and sample scripts out there.

You don't really give enough info to make any recommendations. Are you looking for one-to-one chat, group chat or both. What platforms, web, mobile, native app? What backend/language, .Net, php, Node JS, something else? Avatars and/or user profiles? Moderated/unmoderated? Free/subscription/usage based charging for users? How many users, tens, hundreds, thousands, millions?

You say that you know it could attract a decent number. How do you know? What's your idea of a decent number?

ideaburst

Graham wrote: »

There are many, many out of the box chat solutions and sample scripts out there.

You don't really give enough info to make any recommendations. Are you looking for one-to-one chat, group chat or both. What platforms, web, mobile, native app? What backend/language, .Net, php, Node JS, something else? Avatars and/or user profiles? Moderated/unmoderated? Free/subscription/usage based charging for users? How many users, tens, hundreds, thousands, millions?

You say that you know it could attract a decent number. How do you know? What's your idea of a decent number?

Cheers for the reply Graham, I realise it was short on info but just wanted to get the ball rolling to start with.

All great questions. By a decent number I mean dozens to start with at least, but really what I would be more interested in is growth, i.e. even if it only attracts 10 users in week 1, but 20 in week 2, then 100% growth is something I would be very happy with (and would view as very achievable starting off). I also work in the digital marketing / advertising area, so I would have the knowledge in terms of the marketing side of things and getting it out there on social media, etc.

When I say 'I know it could', obviously I can't know that for certain, but there are two reasons why I feel it would get sign-ups straight off the bat and grow at a reasonable rate (listed below):

1) I can safely say that every idea I have ever had is either one of those 'doesn't meet a need / solve a problem / make a particular scenario much easier to deal with' idea. This one definitely does tick those boxes (imo).

2) It meets one of the big tests for me - 'would I use it myself'. The answer is a resounding yes, and three years ago I was at a particular stage where if it existed, I would have fired up the website and joined straight away.

Some further replies:

Q. Are you looking for one-to-one chat, group chat or both.

A. One-to-one to start with, group chat could could work very well later on, but it would not be a priority for the initial version.

Q. What platforms, web, mobile, native app?

A. This is really a concept that would be perfectly suited to a mobile web app, as there is a very strong geo-local element. Then of course, apps are a perfect medium for chat, and so this would seem to be the perfect platform.

I say 'web app' as opposed to native app, as we would want it to be as amenable to as many people as possible starting out (e.g. not just iOS users, etc). I am not overly familiar with that whole world though, and I know that different requirements require different solutions - and so it is something I would be looking for advice on.

Q. What backend/language, .Net, php, Node JS, something else?

A. Not overly qualified to say which, but I imagine .Net as it will be a database-driven application. php for the frontend I would say.

Q. Avatars and/or user profiles?

A. Concise user profiles. Avatar will be pulled automatically from FB / Twitter, and the user can then add a short bio to go with it (optional but encouraged).

Q. Moderated/unmoderated?

A. Do you mean will the site be moderated, will chats be moderated, or will users be moderated at sign-up? Or possible all three? What we would want to do there at the outset is implement a 'block user' function as well as a 'report user' function. That should be fine for the initial version.

Q. Free/subscription/usage based charging for users?

A. Free to all to start with, but I would be leaning towards a freemium model and I have some other ideas there too. The idea is to really get a prototype / beta version in place first. At the same time, it needs to look attractive as otherwise it just becomes counter-productive if people are turned off by the look and feel.

Q. How many users, tens, hundreds, thousands, millions?

A. I find it reasonably easy to come up with new ideas, and at this stage I really do look at the them very clinically. If it doesn't 'click', then I just drop it as there is always another one coming along - and the worst thing is to build something no-one wants!

John_Mc

.Net now has SignalR built into it so you can push messages from the server to the connected clients without polling. Very cool and very easy to achieve.

Graham

Sounds like your more looking for an instant messenger type app than a traditional chat app.

I can't think of anything of the shelf that would meet all your requirements.

You'd choose .Net or php (or one of the other options) not both, the fact it needs to be database driven doesn't restrict you to any particular platform.

If you're not planning to develop this yourself, you're probably looking around a 5 figure ballpark to get something developed. You might get something cheaper by off-shoring the work but without the experience to manage a project like this you'd struggle to be honest.

ideaburst

Graham wrote: »

Sounds like your more looking for an instant messenger type app than a traditional chat app.

I can't think of anything of the shelf that would meet all your requirements.

You'd choose .Net or php (or one of the other options) not both, the fact it needs to be database driven doesn't restrict you to any particular platform.

If you're not planning to develop this yourself, you're probably looking around a 5 figure ballpark to get something developed. You might get something cheaper by off-shoring the work but without the experience to manage a project like this you'd struggle to be honest.

Hi Graham,

Yeah, there definitely wouldn't be any out of the box solution that would do the job, that's why I was saying it would need to be customisable.

Hmm I see, I thought that a site could be built in both, with .Net for the backend and php for the frontend. I am thinking of one site in particular that I know is built in .Net, but then the frontend might actually be cushycms.

I am just thinking that for what I am after, the chat functionality is not a strict requirement at all. People could just post updates, comment on other people's updates, and message other people. In fact, a simple email system would be fine in place of chat, and the emails could even go straight to the user's own email address (as opposed to having to build an email / inbox system within the site).

So essentially, think Twitter - with a strong local element. Now of course I realise that it costs hundreds of millions of dollars just to keep Twitter up and running - but with this product, we might have maybe a few dozen users in the first few weeks.

But it is essentially that - sign up, post updates, interact, private message. I also realise that Twitter already exists! However, that is where the local element and another piece of the puzzle comes in. These couple of elements won't have a huge bearing on the complexity of the product though, I am fairly sure of that.

Will be scoping it out properly in a doc, but all further feedback on the above most welcome. Again, I know it sounds just like Twitter, but the other elements differentiate it from Twitter as it is far more targeted to a particular niche - you'll have to trust me on that!

John_Mc

ideaburst wrote: »

Hi Graham,

Yeah, there definitely wouldn't be any out of the box solution that would do the job, that's why I was saying it would need to be customisable.

Hmm I see, I thought that a site could be built in both, with .Net for the backend and php for the frontend. I am thinking of one site in particular that I know is built in .Net, but then the frontend might actually be cushycms.

I am just thinking that for what I am after, the chat functionality is not a strict requirement at all. People could just post updates, comment on other people's updates, and message other people. In fact, a simple email system would be fine in place of chat, and the emails could even go straight to the user's own email address (as opposed to having to build an email / inbox system within the site).

So essentially, think Twitter - with a strong local element. Now of course I realise that it costs hundreds of millions of dollars just to keep Twitter up and running - but with this product, we might have maybe a few dozen users in the first few weeks.

But it is essentially that - sign up, post updates, interact, private message. I also realise that Twitter already exists! However, that is where the local element and another piece of the puzzle comes in. These couple of elements won't have a huge bearing on the complexity of the product though, I am fairly sure of that.

Will be scoping it out properly in a doc, but all further feedback on the above most welcome. Again, I know it sounds just like Twitter, but the other elements differentiate it from Twitter as it is far more targeted to a particular niche - you'll have to trust me on that!

You'd be crazy to combine a .Net backend and a PHP front end. Not only would you need a server that can host IIS and Apache, you'd also need developers that can work with both.

Twitter isn't actually very complicated in terms of functionality and shouldn't be hard to replicate. Having said that, serving that many users with a reliable experience is a different matter entirely.

I'm biased because I'm a .NET developer, but the MVC framework is lovely to work with and when combined with the likes of Entity Framework you can prototype and develop things very quickly.

As for the chat functionality, here's a blog post showing how SignalR can do that for you. Microsoft always demonstrate the functionality of SignalR as a chat application but that's an ideal use of it.

Colonel Panic

John_Mc wrote: »

.Net now has SignalR built into it so you can push messages from the server to the connected clients without polling. Very cool and very easy to achieve.

Saw this post at the right time. It fits in nicely for something I want to do on a personal project of mine!

John_Mc

Colonel Panic wrote: »

Saw this post at the right time. It fits in nicely for something I want to do on a personal project of mine!

Yeah it works well and is easy to integrate. I had it up and running in a few minutes

ideaburst

John_Mc wrote: »

You'd be crazy to combine a .Net backend and a PHP front end. Not only would you need a server that can host IIS and Apache, you'd also need developers that can work with both.

Twitter isn't actually very complicated in terms of functionality and shouldn't be hard to replicate. Having said that, serving that many users with a reliable experience is a different matter entirely.

I'm biased because I'm a .NET developer, but the MVC framework is lovely to work with and when combined with the likes of Entity Framework you can prototype and develop things very quickly.

As for the chat functionality, here's a blog post showing how SignalR can do that for you. Microsoft always demonstrate the functionality of SignalR as a chat application but that's an ideal use of it.

That's great to hear re Twitter (re replicating it) as I figured the functionality should be fairly simple, it's serving a lot of users that would be the complex part.

Given that the number of users on what I am looking to build would be much smaller at launch (maybe a few dozen to a couple of hundred in the first 2-3 weeks), is it also fairly doable to build something that is akin to Twitter, but also capable of scaling up to accommodate an increase or sudden influx of users at will?

So let's say I go to build this using the likes of what you reference above, or maybe something like this (or some other open-source script or engine), I take it it is more a case of paying for the bandwith / server space to accommodate an increase in users, as opposed to anything complex relating to the platform itself?

So having slept on it, basically what would be required is the following:

1. Site design for home page and internal pages

2. Sign up via Facebook or Twitter

3. Once signed up, you are landed onto your 'activity stream' - same as Twitter basically.

4. You can view user updates via your stream, comment on their updates (the equivalent of the @mention), send them a private message and chat with them if they are online (if the chat function will add significantly to time / expense, it can be left out). You can also delete comments, statuses and block and report users. You also get email updates when someone comments on your status or messages you (again, same as Twitter).

5. User settings - the usual. Edit bio (Twitter bio will populate if you sign-up using Twitter), edit profile picture (will auto-populate from FB/Twitter), edit location, deactivate account.

And that's it! I have left out the 'secret sauce' above, which is basically the core concept and vision for the site, but which also doesn't affect any of the above functionality.

So to sum up, I'd be looking to get points 1-5 in place using an open-source technology / script, along with a particular design I have in mind for the site. That would involve getting someone to build it, and a designer to design it.

I already have my domain name Another advantage is that while I am not a technical person, I have a lot of experience in terms of working with developers and designers on various web projects.

John_Mc

ideaburst wrote: »

That's great to hear re Twitter (re replicating it) as I figured the functionality should be fairly simple, it's serving a lot of users that would be the complex part.

Given that the number of users on what I am looking to build would be much smaller at launch (maybe a few dozen to a couple of hundred in the first 2-3 weeks), is it also fairly doable to build something that is akin to Twitter, but also capable of scaling up to accommodate an increase or sudden influx of users at will?

So let's say I go to build this using the likes of what you reference above, or maybe something like this (or some other open-source script or engine), I take it it is more a case of paying for the bandwith / server space to accommodate an increase in users, as opposed to anything complex relating to the platform itself?

So having slept on it, basically what would be required is the following:

1. Site design for home page and internal pages

2. Sign up via Facebook or Twitter

3. Once signed up, you are landed onto your 'activity stream' - same as Twitter basically.

4. You can view user updates via your stream, comment on their updates (the equivalent of the @mention), send them a private message and chat with them if they are online (if the chat function will add significantly to time / expense, it can be left out).

And that's it! I have left out the 'secret sauce' above, which is basically the core concept and vision for the site, but which also doesn't affect any of the above functionality.

So to sum up, I'd be looking to get points 1-4 in place using an open-source technology / script, along with a particular design I have in mind for the site. That would involve getting someone to build it, and a designer to design it.

I already have my domain name Another advantage is that while I am not a technical person, I have a lot of experience in terms of working with developers and designers on various web projects.

I'm not sure if there is an open source solution out there that ticks all the boxes for you. I just did a search there and there are a number of open source Twitter clones built using .NET MVC. I presume you can also find PHP versions.

You might be better off doing a custom build using one of these as a baseline to start from. It would be easier to add new functionality as you grow then.

As for scalability, if the application is built correctly (i.e with maintainability and scalability in mind) then you can scale to accommodate more users by increasing the server resources. Azure of Amazon are great ways to allow for this.

stevenmu

Most of the major CMS should have a range of chat modules available, some of which should match or come close to your needs. Off the top of my head, the top CMS I can think of would be Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, DotNetNuke, Umbraco etc, but there's many others too.

If you search for things like "Wordpress chat module" or "DotNetNuke chat module" etc, or even more generic things like CMS chat module, you should find lots of examples to try and compare.

And most CMS are free and pretty easy to install and set up if you wanted to try some options out.

ideaburst

John_Mc wrote: »

I'm not sure if there is an open source solution out there that ticks all the boxes for you. I just did a search there and there are a number of open source Twitter clones built using .NET MVC. I presume you can also find PHP versions.

You might be better off doing a custom build using one of these as a baseline to start from. It would be easier to add new functionality as you grow then.

As for scalability, if the application is built correctly (i.e with maintainability and scalability in mind) then you can scale to accommodate more users by increasing the server resources. Azure of Amazon are great ways to allow for this.

stevenmu wrote: »

Most of the major CMS should have a range of chat modules available, some of which should match or come close to your needs. Off the top of my head, the top CMS I can think of would be Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, DotNetNuke, Umbraco etc, but there's many others too.

If you search for things like "Wordpress chat module" or "DotNetNuke chat module" etc, or even more generic things like CMS chat module, you should find lots of examples to try and compare.

And most CMS are free and pretty easy to install and set up if you wanted to try some options out.

Right, so I am seeing that perhaps a combo of an open-source Twitter framework + a CMS like Wordpress might be a good way to go?

I think that the chat function could actually be stripped out which would save on time / cost, users will have plenty of ways to interact between status updates and messaging anyway.

Our budget would be quite limited, but the idea would be to work with open source platforms as per the above, get our first set of users on board, and if it goes as well as we hope - invest in more server space, etc.

I reckon I'd be looking to get the design done here in Ireland, but if the initial development cost to get us up and running was going to be more than a few thousand, I'd imagine we'd need to go offshore (or use a provider based here working with offshore developers). I don't see why it couldn't be done on a tight budget though, if the amount of customisation is small starting out.

croo

There are few videos in this vogue on youtube
build twitter in 60 mins with grails

Graham

croo wrote: »

There are few videos in this vogue on youtube
build twitter in 60 mins with grails

It looks like a 'micro-blogging' app is the new 'Hello World'. There's dozens of them out there for every platform you can think of (and some you can't).

ideaburst

I have a four-page spec done up now. I reckon it won't be all that cheap to build, but the costs can be kept down using open-source tech I feel. May put up a post on the Work Wanted thread.

Graham

Unfortunately an open source platform isn't going to have a huge impact on the development costs.

ideaburst

Graham wrote: »

Unfortunately an open source platform isn't going to have a huge impact on the development costs.

What would your recommendation be for getting a prototype up and running at minimal cost? I know it's hard to say but I feel there has to be a way.

I will say this, I know it can be done via Elance and the likes. So that may be the way to go. Design in Ireland and ship offshore.

Graham

ideaburst wrote: »

I will say this, I know it can be done via Elance and the likes. So that may be the way to go. Design in Ireland and ship offshore.

Very tough to manage off-shoring work properly, especially if you're not in a position to check coding standards/quality yourself. It's a very easy way to spend money and see little in return.

Check out this post in the situations vacant from yesterday. The OP of that post is going to struggle to find someone willing to take that on, especially as he thinks most of the work is already done.

If you are going to attempt the off-shore route, make sure your spec absolutely spells out (almost in pictures) exactly what you want and consider hiring an experienced project manager locally to oversee things.

ideaburst

Graham wrote: »

Very tough to manage off-shoring work properly, especially if you're not in a position to check coding standards/quality yourself. It's a very easy way to spend money and see little in return.

Check out this post in the situations vacant from yesterday. The OP of that post is going to struggle to find someone willing to take that on, especially as he thinks most of the work is already done.

If you are going to attempt the off-shore route, make sure your spec absolutely spells out (almost in pictures) exactly what you want and consider hiring an experienced project manager locally to oversee things.

Hey Graham,

I saw that post yesterday alright, and I couldn't agree more. As I said earlier, I have a fair bit of experience in web project management, and I know that you get what you pay for.

In fact, I recently finished up a minor hobby-type project which I outsourced to India via Elance, and whilst they were quite responsive and quick to fix things, I still had to oversee them quite a bit - and I've no doubt that the code is probably pretty shaky (although I can't say for sure).

The idea was to MVP it, but I have since realised that there is no point doing an MVP if the end result looks unappealing and is possibly going to break down at intervals, etc.

In this case I would either be looking to contract an Irish freelancer, or going the offshore route I would be looking to a local company to project manage overseas developers. I do know of one company in Dublin who do this, and they seem solid.

As an entrepreneur, it's the classic catch-22. It's tough to get a reliable, attractive website in place without spending quite a bit, but if you don't have the budget what do you do. That's why I would be looking to go offshore via a project manager, or work with an Irish freelancer / agency, if they could find a way to roll out an attractive and reliable beta site within our budget.

So that's really where I am at right now.

Graham

I think MVP is definitely the appropriate choice, (in the nicest possible way) especially for you.

ideaburst

Graham wrote: »

I think MVP is definitely the appropriate choice, (in the nicest possible way) especially for you.

It is, but it really depends on the end result - what that will look like and how much it will cost.

What about phpBlogger - with some customisation it could do the job, since essentially what we need is that, with some customisation.

Graham

Without knowing your full requirements it's hard to say. It does look like a simple twitter clone so if your requirements are to clone twitter, it's perfect.

You really need to get a developer to go through your spec and trawl through the phpBlogger code to answer your questions properly. You may find that trying to cross-purpose an existing product is as much work as creating something from scratch.

ideaburst

Graham wrote: »

Without knowing your full requirements it's hard to say. It does look like a simple twitter clone so if your requirements are to clone twitter, it's perfect.

You really need to get a developer to go through your spec and trawl through the phpBlogger code to answer your questions properly. You may find that trying to cross-purpose an existing product is as much work as creating something from scratch.

Yep, I already have a pretty detailed spec done up. Thinking of getting some quotes in now.

It would be very similar to Twitter (and Facebook) but would look a lot different in terms of design, focus and presentation. So anyone using it would already be familiar with the core features and how to use them - commenting, updating your status, messaging other users, etc.

stephenlane80

ideaburst wrote: »

Right, so I am seeing that perhaps a combo of an open-source Twitter framework + a CMS like Wordpress might be a good way to go?

I think that the chat function could actually be stripped out which would save on time / cost, users will have plenty of ways to interact between status updates and messaging anyway.

Our budget would be quite limited, but the idea would be to work with open source platforms as per the above, get our first set of users on board, and if it goes as well as we hope - invest in more server space, etc.

but if the initial development cost to get us up and running was going to be more than a few thousand, I'd imagine we'd need to go offshore

If you can get a custom platform independent mobile chat/messaging/cms application built for this amount of money i would be very surprised. I mean you could easily spend this amount of money on a decent looking static website. Combining 2/3 open source platforms would be a nightmare to develop and maintain and developing a reliable version of what you want would cost you many many multiples of what you have to spend. If you don't have the coding skills to do this yourself then im afraid without proper funding your not gonna get a lot for your budget.

You wont even get to speak to a venture capitalist without a working prototype so its a chicken and egg situation for you. Alternatively, and im not putting myself forward, you can offer equity in your future company to a developer/developers who would do the work in return for the equity. Sorry if it sounds negative but there are also hopefully some helpful suggestions in there for you too.

ideaburst

stephenlane80 wrote: »

If you can get a custom platform independent mobile chat/messaging/cms application built for this amount of money i would be very surprised. I mean you could easily spend this amount of money on a decent looking static website. Combining 2/3 open source platforms would be a nightmare to develop and maintain and developing a reliable version of what you want would cost you many many multiples of what you have to spend. If you don't have the coding skills to do this yourself then im afraid without proper funding your not gonna get a lot for your budget.

You wont even get to speak to a venture capitalist without a working prototype so its a chicken and egg situation for you. Alternatively, and im not putting myself forward, you can offer equity in your future company to a developer/developers who would do the work in return for the equity. Sorry if it sounds negative but there are also hopefully some helpful suggestions in there for you too.

Thanks, there is a chicken and egg element for sure, but at the same time there are thousands of startups all around the world (and dozens in Dublin), which have started off by bootstrapping, and / or getting an initial boost via accelerators, incubators, etc. We intend to explore all options

We know how the site could make money, and because it is going to be very targeted in terms of our market, we stand a better chance than a more generic site which doesn't address anyone in particular.

At the same time, I would want and would expect to pay a developer for his or her time, I don't think working for just equity is fair - plus I doubt you'd get a quality one willing to work for just equity. I guess a reduced rate + equity might be an option that some would consider.

Talisman

You could knock the site/app together with Node.js very quickly. Node + Socket.io would give you the real-time chat facility that is backward compatible with ancient browsers like IE 5.5 and Firefox 3.

ChRoMe

ideaburst wrote: »

plus I doubt you'd get a quality one willing to work for just equity.

I think... I think I love you

Graham

ideaburst wrote: »

At the same time, I would want and would expect to pay a developer for his or her time, I don't think working for just equity is fair - plus I doubt you'd get a quality one willing to work for just equity. I guess a reduced rate + equity might be an option that some would consider.

ChRoMe wrote: »

I think... I think I love you

It's catching on slowly. Very slowly:

stephenlane80 wrote: »

you can offer equity in your future company to a developer/developers who would do the work in return for the equity.

:rolleyes:

As an experiment, I just phoned Tesco, Superquinn, Aldi and Lidl. Not one of the feckers will take equity for this weeks shopping. :pac:

ideaburst

Ha, don't get too excited now lads. I work in the digital arena, and realise that developers can't be expected to work for nowt! I know the amount of work and effort that goes into producing a reliable, attractive website - the man on the street probably doesn't!

As regards this project, basically we would be looking for this:

-A Twitter-esque interface - sign up, post a status, comment on a status, message a user privately, view your stream (of statuses).

-A design which will wrap around this interface. By this, I mean we have a specific home page design in mind, and this design will be reflected through the other 4-6 pages on the site.

So that starting point is really figuring out which type of Twitter 'clone' or other application would be best placed to accommodate the above. The chat function is actually no longer required.

All further feedback on this most welcome.

Graham

ideaburst wrote: »

Ha, don't get too excited now lads. I work in the digital arena, and realise that developers can't be expected to work for nowt!

Sorry ideaburst, my last post wasn't directed at you.