Not another social network or how we decided to create our own social network.

Instead of prologue

Everyone is somehow faced with social networks. Someone occasionally looks at new pictures of friends, and someone spends nights on the span and updates his page waiting for new messages.
Usually we see only the final result of the work of the developers, more or less beautifully served and ready for use. But the most interesting thing that happens in the kitchen remains hidden.

Not so long ago, our small, but proud company decided to get a blog on Habré and, of course, we just could not ignore sharing with you our first big project with a big name - Insider News (What is it: social local news network).

In a series of reviews, we would like to take a look at social networks not only from the end user's point of view, but also to look behind the scenes, highlight the process from the inside, and invite all interested habrayusers to watch the development and development of the project together with us, to become part of this process.
In our reviews, we will try to describe in detail both ideological considerations and technical methods for their implementation. Your attention is a live broadcast of the development of a collective blog to a full-fledged social network. Report from the construction site. And so, let's go!
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A little about the idea and the first steps

Who owns the information, owns the world. Strange, but despite the abundance of news sites and news channels on TV, the feeling that you do not have the information, but the information has you, does not constantly leave. 99% of the news is devoted to what decree Putin signed and what new gadget was presented to Medvedev. Yes, of course, entertaining, but what is the use of this information? In the end, people live by what is happening around them and is of immediate importance to them, and not by distant news about some abstract events. So the idea was to create a local news site.
In the courtyard was the spring of 2010.

No sooner said than done! During the day, the first design was drawn and a cool-sounding, but poorly remembered domain in the .info zone was purchased.


But who will fill the site? Who knows best about the events of his city? Right! Those who live there. Yes, and web 2.0 has not been canceled. It was decided to make an open platform, a collective blog, where each person could share the news, of which he became a participant or an eyewitness. But is this something new? RIA Novosti or KP have long had similar sections. So why so much effort? We explain. First, because of the pre-moderation and banal bureaucracy on the major news portals. News sent by visitors may lose their relevance. Secondly, each publication has its own information policy, which means censorship. Thirdly, the news of a small town, i.e. local news is unlikely to find a proper understanding of the audience, designed for global events.
From this formed the basic principles of our site policy.

• News should be published without pre-moderation and with maximum convenience.
• No censorship
• Focus on local news and the ability to sort by city / region.

After the project idea was finally formed, all friends in contact were sent invitations to become an insider and try themselves in the role of a field journalist, to write about what interests and excites them.
But since friends and acquaintances were terribly busy playing the "happy farmer" and the raid bosses in the lineup, the project was buried before it really began.

Second wind

In June, we surprisingly managed to find an investor who, in his burning eyes, saw not signs of progressive schizophrenia, but enthusiasm and, having quickly counted his losses, nevertheless agreed to invest in our idea. A week later, a talented self-taught programmer was invited to the team, assuring with every possible opportunity that everything could theoretically be done, and the work began to boil.




In the process, our programmer also became a layout designer and sysadmin, discovering a sea of ​​previously unknown abilities. A month later, the first prototype was already ready, which immediately went on the air under the sonorous title Insider News .
For the stimulus, they decided that it would not be bad to hold a competition for the best article and encourage winners with cash prizes (although, as many later assured, the main thing was not a prize, but participation. But it is worth noting that no one refused the prizes).

The functionality of the first version was quite simple, but at the same time fully consistent with the main idea of ​​the project. Each user could (even anonymously) write any news, tying it to a specific city. Also, the basic functionality included the ability to comment and rate news. We used a slightly modified WordPress engine.

Paradoxically, but at that moment, when the first version of the site was published, doubts about its prospects immediately appeared. First of all, it was oppressed by a rather heavy design, which might have been interesting, but was not suitable for the information site we saw it. Immediately work began on the improvement.
We completely abandoned the background and rather obtrusive images, thereby making the overall look lighter and, secondly, more restrained. In addition, the weight of the site also became easier. By analogy with the newspaper, they decided to try to divide the columns on the main page with vertical lines, thereby strengthening the relative news related to each other. They also began to print on the main number of comments left on the news and highlight the news of the new day in gray. Now it became immediately clear where, what and how is being discussed and what news is fresh.


The main technical innovation of the second version was the possibility of registering on the site through OpenID, an intelligent rubber layout and a new server.

We invite all users and readers of Habr to test our site , and perhaps join the project. We will be happy to answer all questions, criticism and comments. And we hope that you will be interested to stay with us.

(We have tried to answer frequent rhetorical questions in our phake: insidernews.ru/faq )

Further

In the following reviews we would like to present our ideas on how a collective blog can be transformed into a social network and why it is needed at all, pay attention to the mobile version of the site, create your own engine and much more interesting.