I realize a lot of my entries lately have been about my website. That’s because it’s a big part of my life right now. The part about it that’s fun has sort to dropped off and it’s now become just work. Like a second job. But a rewarding job once it’s done since I know how cool it’s going to be.

We’re currently designing the database and it’s quite an overload. Lot going on and a lot of work. I’ve also been laying out a pecking order for development. I meet again with Dante on Friday night and after this meeting we should have our ducks in a row and can begin building again.

I know we have quite a battle ahead of us. Being a completely unknown website from a new unknown company. I’ve been watching the market and keeping my eye on what’s going on in the social network space. It’s a huge market these days and everyone wants to be a player. Just today Apple announced their new music social network through itunes and Google has been rumored to be in development on a new gaming social network.

In some way it feels like the internet is no longer about the small guys. Today it’s all about big companies making big strides and mergers and deals just like in the real world. The small dorm room developers like the Google and Facebook of yesteryear have all grown up to become multi-billion dollar companies with growing patent portfolios designed to keep the innovation out the little guys hands.
Makes you wonder if anyone stands a chance against these mammoth companies and their influence and pocketbooks.

But I believe there is still a chance. I believe that good ideas and good implementation of those ideas can win people over. That’s why we’re doing this. I’m not afraid of these companies and honestly I’m not afraid of people not liking what we’ll have to offer. I know people will like it. Even if many say “Another social network, we’ve already got a ton of these.”  To which my answer is “you can drink as much pop as you want, but it will never give you the feeling this one bottle of beer will give you.”

To be honest what scares me the most is whether or not we’re going to have enough server bandwidth and well scaling database to keep the traffic moving smoothly. Currently that idea is what has me stressing over this database design right now. Making sure we get it right from the start. I don’t want this site to fall to the same fate that Friendster did. So we may have to offer invite codes from the start to control traffic flow. Very similar to what facebook did by rolling it out only to certain schools one or two at a time, until they were able to scale up. I hate doing that, but it might be a reality.