WordPress MU

Hi,

I need a site to allow childcare providers to register for a small fee and have them create a web page for their school with pertinent information for parents.

The web page must have the ability to add images, etc of their school, and allow comments from interested parents.
I'd assume each person would want a different template rather than each one looking the same.

Your suggestions please.

Thank you.

Um.

OK, that's nice. Are you asking a question about WPMu or what? The software will do what you're asking about.

Here's a little more clarification:

I would run my own blog(site) where 100s of child care providers could register first for a small fee, then create their own blog (site) from my site.

The providers should also be able to do a city and state search for different providers and compare. The provider must be able to personalize their webpage.

Can I create a payment system and registration forms on the WP MU blogs?

Thanks

If you have to ask, you should probably hire a professional.

to answer your question: yes. it ca be done. if you have patience, dont bother hiring a professional because he'll be right here asking questions too. everything you need is right here in the forums.

Actually, that isn't a true statement.

There are lots of professionals out there that are quite versed in MU.

Granted they aren't your low wage, front page, talentless hacks, but they produce very good results.

If you honestly aren't familiar with html, css, php, and running a server (and for your scale/size of site you'll need a dedicated box), then hiring a professional is quite a viable option.

Of course, unless you're looking for a "get rich quick with little effort" kind of thing, then you're looking in the wrong place.

Not saying you are, but a lot of people look at wordpress.com, then find out that MU is a version of that, and they automatically see dollar signs. Well, they think they do.

i considered hiring someone. but the software is free. putting it together just requires a little work. the idea of paying someone to do something i can puzzle out myself irks me.

then again - your plan could go either way. you could set up the site, upload 200+ themes and be done with it. childcare providers could register for 'a small fee' and create a blog/web page the requisite information.

if you want 'easy' - then Google Expression Engine. i've had a lot of success with that and it was my fall back if WPMU turned out to be too daunting. its cheap and easy to use. if you have a lot of content, try joomla - i have a lot of experience with that. it can be frustrating to beginners.

i like WPMU. staring at some plugin until a light goes on gives me a sense of satisfaction.

Thanks for all your comments.
I'm checking into the cost of hiring a database professional since my expertise is with front end design.

do you reeally need a database professional? is there something going on in the DB that i should be looking at? i'm in no way a DBA. whts going in the DB that requires hired help?

Thanks for the feedback..more details

He needs a search engine on his site so parents/providers can search and compare names of providers by city and state.

Have each provider be able to track visits to their pages.

After payment is approved the site would take them to the personal profile page where they create their own webpage; answering preset questions, choosing backgrounds, font, graphics, color and uploading their school photos to personalize their page.

Could WP MU achieve this?

yeah. well, mine does al ltht and it didnt require a whole lot of tinkering.

most themes have a search function. if not, you can add a google widget to the sidebar or get a google adsense search box.

there are many things out there that track visits.

as for the personalized page - you'll prolly be stuck with whatever themes you upload. though most of this stuff can be handled with widgets and a few plugins. some themes let you modify colors and stuff. Jason’s Customciser will let your people do stuff like that. i didnt like it, before, but i may give it another shot. users can upload photos as per normal or you can add a gallery. i've added gallery2.

for the pay functionality check out this thread about paid privileges

i dont see why it couldnt be done and done well. all the new stuff coming out has me wanted to start another site.

IMO WPMU is kindof a dream for an 'enthusiastic amateur' in that it operates on two levels.

If you can manage cPanel & FTP and know how to swing a text editor then you can pretty much get it going - I'm keen to really encourage those people b'cos I most certainly was one and am still oh so very far from anything you'd define as technical expertise.

But at the same time if you want to do anything on a large scale (say over 1K blogs) or for $ then you really do need an expert to help - stuff like extending functionality, running larger sites, managing for future upgrades and integration with other systems isn't something you can really do without a good knowledge of php / sql (which I, on my own, incidentally, don't have more than a conceptual grasp of :)

And in my experience you're much much better going with someone who knows wpmu inside out - even if they cost more than rentacoder... there are so many nuances around the software and, perhaps more importantly, around what kinds of things you want to actually do with it (not to mention future developments) that it just makes sense.

And it makes good karma too - throw some support behind the software by hiring someone who know what they're technically doing.

Thanks for the encouragement!

demonicume, can I contact you directly if I get stuck or shall I just post here?

sure, whatever i can do. curtis (dot) earl (at) gmail (dot) com

i stalked Dr. Mike and Lunabyte for the really complex answers. but i'll give you access to whatever i have.

curt