BleepingComputer.com: Starting a Social Networking Site

Although there are plenty of them out there, I'd like to start a social networking site.
I can't afford to pay for a host that supports php, and although freewebs (now called webs) does support it and is offering one month free, I don't want to waste my one month just trying to figure everything out.
Does anyone know of any free hosts that do support php?

As for log in forms, I will be reading the pinned thread on that and asking all questions about that there.

My next area of interest is, of course, user profiles...
How would I go about making those?

I'm also interested in making a forum (otherwise what's the point in it being a social networking site? lol).
Is there anything special associated with making your own forum, rather than getting it off another site?


(I will be adding to this as i think of things... This is just everything on the top of my head right now.)

The key to developing any sort of site, or any program for that matter, is to break the job down into small tasks. A useful forum does many jobs. Just look at this page for instance. There is code that generates the layout. There is code that handles actions when a button is clicked. There is code to manage the session (keeping track of when a user is logged in). There is code that interacts with the reads from the database. There is code that writes to the database. Each of those is a single task. Before writing any code, one has to figure out what all of the tasks are. This is why most people choose to use software that someone else wrote. Why reinvent the wheel, unless you are really interested in learning how a wheel is made.

A user profile is the same thing. It is one job that consists of smaller tasks. What are those tasks? Well, it is your site, so it is up to you to determine what needs to be done.

There is a better option to Webs I have used Ning before now they charge tho. Spruz is a similar site and is great for creating a social network.