Social Network for a local community

Hi all,

I live in a country side county call Cayambe in Ecuador - South America. This county is about 100 000 people, where around half live in the town and the rest in the rural areas. At the moment there is relative good Internet in the main town where people could start using the social network right away. I have a plan to get people in the rural area involve, but that is another plan and I would work on that later ;)

My dream is to use this social network as the online place for the local community. I want people to met each other and know the profesional skills of the other people. Something in between linkedin and facebook. I also want to promote local economy, where people can promote not only their professional skills, but also their business. I want the artists to upload videos to the Internet and then sell presentations thanks to the Internet and Elgg ;).

I also want this social network to be sustentable over time. That means I need to make money out of it. I have two ideas for it, but I am not sure how to implement them;

1) Is to have cheap advertisement. You can create your company page, and do business out of it, but if you want to be on the most viewed pages then you should pay somethin for advertisement. I was thinking something like $10 a month for individuals and something like $200 for companies. Not sure how to implement the banners in elgg yet.

2) The other idea is to go for the big companies in town and ask them to sponsor the site. They may pay way more than what I said in option #1, and I can have may site sustainable from the beginning (if they think I have a good idea). The $10 advertisement would go here to.

Is there a tool to do per click advertisement for elgg and/or php?

 

Promotion

I plan to negotiate with local radio station to go online throw this social network. That way when they advertise their online radio they would also be advertising the social network. There is also the idea to ask them to give me space in their radio to talk about Cayambe Libre (the social network name). At first it would be how to create accounts, how to use the tool, but after it should be about what is going on on the social network.

Is there any plugin to put an Ice cast player in elgg?

Well, I just post this because I think someone already has some experiencing with projects like this out there and I would like to know them.  Also, I have to admit, I needed to share my ideas to the community. Is easier to find someone who understands me in this community, than in the local community ;).

Best regards,

Rafael