please give guidence on making a social networking website

Question

what is an api, if a make a db and a social site in asp.net and c#, sql host it. how can i ask others to make applications for it? i mean how is that possible, i have the code, so API, is it a software?

i want to make a site like facebook social networking site, but its proving to be very very difficult, Ajax java script and all that

please help by providing examples, codes, readable, guidance,

thank you, i has asked a similar question but deleted it as it was not clear

thank you

Answer 1

From your question it seems like you may be in a bit over your head -- here are a few clarifications:

1. An API is an "Application Programming Interface" -- for social networking sites, this usually means a way for other developers to access your site's data. This would be coded by you, and would probably have a service interface exposed over HTTP.
2. In order to allow people to write Applications to plug into your site, you will need to create the whole infrastructure for plugins -- define interfaces, base classes, or whatever more loosely-defined plug-in approach you want to use, possibly also part of your API. It might be useful to look at how Facebook and others have done this and emulate their approach.
3. As far as getting other people to write applications, that, my friend, is the million dollar question (literally). Basically, you have to have your site become so popular that people can either make money writing apps or make it cool to write apps. It's pure marketing.

While it may be a fun exercise to create a social networking site, the main problem you might have "writing the next Facebook" is that Facebook is already established, has massive success, and is free. It also has other successful competitors. If another site wants to be popular, they need a different spin on social media (like Twitter or Stack Overflow), and a lot of marketing expertise.