Help find me a CMS! for a Large site. Pictures inside..

Hello everyone,

I have been trying to start up a new website and I have no idea what CMS to use.
I want to make a site similar to CNET.com' reviews. However, it will be different products, not electronics and gadgets.

Overall features of the site:

~ On the home page all the categories of the "product brands" and "products" will be listed. I need to be able to easily update and direct the links to new pages that I make, which I will discuss soon.

example (not the same categories):


~ When a visitor clicks on a "product brand" on the home page under the category listing they then go to that product brand's page. On that the brand's page it lists all the products they carry. (I need to be able to create new brand pages easily).

example (breadcrumb format)

[Home page > Product Brand Page > Product page]


~ On the specific product page there will be the following info:

-the manufacturer’s description
-features of the product
-an expert review, if there is any (I add the expert reviews to the page)
-member reviews (members register and can add there own reviews)
-pictures/videos
-links to guides on the product in the “Guide Section”
*As well as a rating from the expert and average rating from members (out of 10 stars).

example (not the same design format but similar):



~ The "Guide Section" will allow members and me (admin) to add guides (basically articles on how to do something) and articles. I need to be able to easily manage this section because it will most likely drive me the most traffic through search engines.


~ I want a section that visitors can search for "stores" in their area by clicking on individual states or searching by zip codes. Once the listings of stores in their area come up they can see exactly where the "store" is in on a Google Map. Also members can add new stores to the database which will come up in searches or by states.

example:



~ Searches on products can be made and sorted by:
-relevance to search
-expert's rating
-member's average rating


~ News headlines on home page update when a new post is made in my blog (news) section. Also have RSS Feed and Social Bookmarking options.


~Newsletter opt-in on home page.


I will be using Google Adsense ads, affiliate product (commission junction), and a service that deals with banner ads but I haven't decided on one yet.

I need to know what CMS can handle all this. It will be a big website and look professional, with a sleek custom design.

In the future I may expand and add an e commerce store, a forum section, a video/picture upload (kind of like youtube/flickr), and possibly a social network community.

(I am being vague in some parts of the description so I don't just put my idea out to everyone)


I will be looking for someone or a company to develop and design this website project, so if anyone, who knows what they are doing, would like to take on the task let me know. Or any recommendations to someone/company who can.

THANKS to anyone who took the time to read this post and can help me out!!


-Kyle

 

you could probably adapt one of the 100's of them that are out there...
but my vote goes towards silverstipe (cms framework) and have one developed, to fit your exact needs

 

I would take a look at PHP-Fusion http://www.php-fusion.co.uk
You might have to do some coding yourself – however I am sure you could also get a lot of help from the support/user community.

 

I took a look at cnet.com and your list of requirements. WordPress would be a perfect fit for building the site you want. There are several plugins that could be used for providing ratings, as well as Google maps integration. The biggest part would be inputing the information into the site for Google maps. This would require a lot of time on your part. Also, please keep in mind that although Google maps are great, they can really overload a site when too many listings are available on the map.

Using a combination of plugins, along with specific categories and calls to the database for those categories, I could make your site do everything you have mentioned, with the exception of the search function. WordPress has a pretty lousy search function and it wouldn't allow you to sort by relevance, expert's rating or member's average rating. For this, we would need to implement a custom search solution.

WordPress could easily be expanded to include an ecommerce store, a forum, a video/picture upload, and possibly a social network community. Please keep in mind that those solutions are boxed solutions, and are not custom. Consequently, you are limited in terms of what can be done. This is generally the trade-off: open source is less flexible and less expensive, while custom soutions are flexible and expensive.

Please let me know if you have any specific questions regarding the implementation of this CMS for your project. I am available for this project and you can check out my portfolio at the bottom of my homepage to see examples of my work with WordPress. PM me or contact me through my website.