This is all great for absolute newcomers, but there is an ever growing number of Dolphin users that have been around long enough to realize out-of-the-box extensions aren't going to take their site to the level they want. Sooner or later you realize, that to stand out, you must endeavor to offer prospective members something of real value that they either can't get elsewhere, or to do something much better than the closest competition. Facebook has social networking covered... period. Match.com see more & eharmony.com have dating sites covered .... period. It's foolish to think you could even make a slight impact in these areas. There are definitely opportunities out there, but those opportunities do not include building a better site than Facebook or a better site than match.com .... unless of course, you have investors standing by with a few million dollars to invest in your brilliant unproven idea. I personally have uncovered several areas that are "covered" by hundreds or even thousands of sites.... but none of them have it covered really well with modern web technology. I won't be specific, but serious Dolphin users should be looking at web sites that have been around a while.... sites that were built with older technology... sites that are married to that older technology. There's a lot of them. These are sites that you can compete with, if you launch a competitive site with the latest technology.

The biggest road block I face, is trying to find coders to develop the highly custom modules I will need to compete with older sites. These custom modules are urgently needed to launch a site that offers something of real value to members. A site has to be more than uploading photos and videos, people chatting with each other with no identifiable purpose, or posting what they had for lunch on a timeline. A site has to have an identifiable purpose that the members want and need..... not something that's already thoroughly covered by the likes of Facebook or Match.com

Here's the problem:

Trying to get custom work done for Dolphin is proving to be an adventure in frustration. Most of the good module developers have day jobs and only do Dolphin coding in their spare time. ALL of the module developers seem to always be busy with something else. I refuse to deal with those sites that offer a generic pool of "coders" that I have no real idea what they are capable of.... dealing with those sites would be an act of desperation, although I must confess I am near desperation.

If you guys at Boonex really want to make a positive difference in the success rate of Dolphin based sites, you would give this dilemma some thought. You guys have been around long enough, and should know enough people to possibly put together a "Dolphin customization team". This is something that is desperately needed. I admire Boonex's incentive to help newcomers to the Dolphin platform, but there's a lot of us old guys that have stayed with you over the years, that could use a little help too. Think about it. Can you think of a better way to showcase Dolphins capabilities than a truly unique site?