Looking For A Nice City Portal Script?

I just responded to a forum post and felt this deserved it's own thread with a fuller explanation. I am not necessarily a noob, I just read more than I post but I felt this was worthy of a post.

PHP City Portal ( at phpCityPortal.com )definitely has the best portal script bar none. I am a customer of theirs and aside from the script, what I like the most is the customer support.

I am not a fan ("Like most of us little guys") of these companies that are selling directory scripts, city portals, and all the other various scripts floating around, the customer support "submit a ticket" systems that often don't work or go unanswered for long periods of time ESPECIALLY after you have purchased the product.

I just hate it when there is no phone number to call or at least a "Live Chat" option so you can actually speak with someone either about possibly purchasing or for support when you really need it.

But I have to say that while Michael and the guys over there have the same dreaded "submit a ticket" system as the rest of the script developers they atleast answer your tickets within 12-24 hours. I have never submitted a ticket and had to wait any longer than a day for a detailed and helpful response from their team.

Not only that, but I just found out that they are getting ready to implement a "Live Chat" option during their normal operating hours. That is going to be so awesome. I hope it has one for both presales and for support, regardless it is a step in the right direction for customer support.

They also have two options (but you have to ask them nicely for the second one as it's not listed on their site), you can:

#1: Lease their script for $58/mo. which is what most people have to do, and it's a fair price.

#2. Agree to pay a one time fee of $1392.00 to have the script installed on your own server so you own the script for your domain name and you no longer have to pay the $58/mo. hosting fee

I asked for option #2 and Michael and the rest of those guys have still offered their support when it was needed at no charge.

The script is great and IMHO, the bugs have been extremely minimal compared to any other script I have ever purchased, and they were dealt with within an acceptable time frame.

I highly recommend their city portal script for anyone in this niche not only because it's a great quality script, but for the customer support as well.

Oh and by the way, if you live in a small populated city like myself and you are really cordial and respectful with these guys they "might" allow you to claim a small geographical area for like $500.00 bucks extra that could encompass several small-mid sized cities. An example of this would be HelloNorthshore.com You just have to explain the situation and ask them.

I didn't mean to go on this long, but I just have to emphasize the customer support and the fact that your treated like a person and not a number. These guys are human and they are authentic and it's just a breath of fresh air. I highly recommend them above the others hands down, money well spent IMO.

 

What I am noticing with a lot of the proprietary scripts is that most are derived from sample snippets in Dreamweaver and a lot of these Php Books. Infact there's code in one script that will remain nameless is verbatim and they have the nerve to charge $399 for the online community script with only one template. One thing I have ntoiced is how quick these small companies with big ambitions threaten to sue others for using scripts they themselves took from others.

 

Exactly, I recommend that people do the homework on companies before making a purchase. I thoroughly enjoy reading these forums and others to get insight on scripts before making a purchase. As a matter of fact, I nearly purchased AbleDating last year until I read about all the horror stories and seeing the owner Dinitry guy make a fool out of himself on so many boards...sad really.

I am still looking for a nice directory script. I almost pulled the trigger on esyndicat and I am glad I didn't now. But, back to the city portal thing. You can't go wrong with phpCityPortal. Any script that actually works, the company staying on top of customer service, and the script actually paying for itself and turning a profit within 3 or 4 months is always a good idea in my book.

 

It's a nice looking script but with a pretty limited market.

 

I don't think I quite understand what you mean by a "limited market". Simple, choose your city, secure it, and begin marketing your site. I started off by getting people off Craigslist to post classifieds, garage sales, and community events for free. Then when you have the traffic to justify charging "local" companies for advertising you are all set. Your local market is pretty unlimited...which is what your trying to do as opposed to marketing to an unreachable national or even a global market. To each his own I guess, I like the fact that it's pretty simple to do(you don't have to have tons of marketing cash or be a guru), it works as advertised, the support is good, and if you fail it's because you were lazy and there is no one to blame but yourself. I just thought others would like to know that some script selling companies actually do support their products. I read the thread (many threads) on the whole able dating thing and the customer support nightmare with those guys, so I am sure there are some out there looking for a legitimate way to make some extra money and not get ripped off. If you could be more specific in your response that would be great. I feel like an idiot trying to respond to a vague one sentence response.

 

How many city portals can one city sustain?

Might work in a smaller market, but in a city of any size you'll be fighting a huge number of existing sites.

Case in point do a search for San Diego and look at the results. Who is going to use your portal?

 

Oh I see what your saying now. How many yellow page type phone books can a city sustain? Yet there seems to be an abundance, all of which are profitable. Anyways, number one: That is what competition is all about. In this case you would market your site effectively enough to build popluarity with the locals. This is up to me and you (city portal owners) to figure out how to do. With ANY business you have to use your creativity and imagination on what you can offer either differently or better.

Competition in the end benefits the consumer which is what this is all about and fosters creativity. However, as you said it will work as well in smaller markets where there are literally thousands that have no city directories. Not every city in the US is a major hub like San Diego, actually very few are in comparison.

Case in point, my Houston (4th largest US city) portal certainly was not the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd to exist but after a year I became a contender netting me a piece of the portal pie...not to mention the two other suburban communities outside of Houston I now own that are pulling their own weight in profitable ad revenue and took far less time to do so than Houston itself. No one should enter any business venture thinking they are going to be the one and only of it's kind(we'd all like that), but that's just not reality. Good conversation though, I am pretty much through with it now but it was interesting. I just hope no matter what people choose to do to make extra income I hope they do their homework, search forums, and make the right decisions and ultimately end up being successful.

I am still looking for a good directory script, it doesn't have to be free, just really good, accepts paypal, and good customer support. Anyone have any ideas?