How to create a social networking site?

[JamiChi]

Hello! How to make a social network site like Facebook?

[micseydel]

That's a really big question. Could you elaborate? Do you know Python? Do you intend to create a social network site in Python?

[wavic]

Start with a pencil and a lot of paper. Before all of that, you have to decide if it will be a general purpose social network or you have already decided to beat us.
So draw the design. One of the reasons I avoid FB if I can is this - bad design. It's not intuitive. Did you choose the database, the stuff you will keep in it? If all that is clear, start with the code. Build a simple web page just for the tests. It has to have all functionality but the CSS is not needed just for the testing. So, build the database and start testing. When all works as expected, do the design of the page. When that task is finished you are ready to launch it. With a few sentences is simple as that. Do you want to run it on Python? Django, Flask or Pyramid are the libraries. Pick one.

[nilamo]

When it comes to largish projects (like this), I always start with a database model (because I've found that's how I think best).  Once I know how the data is organized and stored, writing a front end to it is almost simple.

For a social network, you have a few obvious tables: Person, PersonFriendship, PersonComment.

A PersonComment would have a parent PersonComment, which would be a comment that that comment is a reply for.  Any PersonComment without a parent, would be a post to that person's Wall.

A little more fleshed out:
Person
 - id
 - NameFirst
 - NameLast

PersonFriendship
 - person_id1
 - person_id2
 - timestamp

PersonComment
 - id
 - person_id
 - parent_personComment_id
 - timestamp
 - Contents

And really, that's very close to the entire thing.  Adding a chat system could be added afterward, as could groups, notifications, etc.  Remember, when facebook first started, it was incredibly basic.