Computer programmers- how hard is it to create a social network?

Well, there are things that make it difficult. But compared to say trying to simulate a nuclear explosion, it's relatively easy (i.e. it doesn't really take any kind of special knowledge or algorithms). The main stumbling block is that it is a large project and so organization is the hardest part--not necessarily the individual parts.

Now, having said that. There ARE things that make large scale websites like facebook difficult to implement. First off, you have to have access to large datacenters that are capable of serving up your requests as well as storing the needed data. Nowadays, this is actually pretty easy to do through cloud computing (you can essentially gain access to large datacenters and pay for only what you use--of course, if your business takes off, you would probably want to have your own datacenter).

But managing the data is actually the hardest thing. If you tried to do it by yourself, it would be exceedingly difficult. You'd have to write load balancers for your servers, implement redundancy for the data (you have to make sure the data is spread relatively equally over your datacenter) and various other things that I've never even thought about...

...having said the ABOVE, there is already software available to do these things for you, but it's kind of a catch-22. For one, you have to learn how to use that software, which is, in my opinion (from the tiny exposure I've had) is NOT necessarily straightforward. And second, I find that to actually utilize software you tend to have to understand how it's working anyway (so that you can tweak it to suit your needs--if you don't understand how the software is working, then tweaking can be difficult if not impossible). So while the software is available to provide things like load balancing and redundancy, you'll end up needing to have at least some understanding of those concepts to use the software effectively.

Before you do anything, you will must defend your 'concept'. Don't tell anyone. Get it patented - and confirm that your idea is just not going to reason you any authorized problems. This is high-priced. Register your website online name right away Social networking is a sexy open space so almost always you must be fine. Situation is - if someone sees your thought -- they may replicate it and put it out to market simply as fast in case you do not need the talents to construct the website simply rent an internet developer. The cheapest alternative is to rent new grads. Put an add in a recruiting site or talk over with some neighborhood faculties. Have them sign a form announcing they will no longer expose any know-how about your notion or the challenge. If you prototype is built, hire testers. Then you definately desire a location to host it the website online. Draft a plan of action, expenditures etc and figure out if you would like investment from others for your family etc. Hope this helps - if you emerge as wealthy of this that you can ship me a donation :) good luck buddy

It depends.

If you are a professional programmer:

I shouldn't have to answer this.

If you are an okay programmer:

Might take a year or so, and you need ALOT of gigs to store personal data

If you are new or not a programmer at all:

Not possible. Learn to program then try.

It depends on experience. If you were to make one, you'd need knowledge of PHP, HTML, CSS, SQL and website design. So, I'd say it would be pretty hard for me, but for you it could be easy.