VBulletin As A Personals Website?

[chandra]

:banana: Today was my first day of being exposed to Vbulletin. It is obviously very professional and happily has an ever growing group of users that continue to adapt the program in innovative, new directions.

I am very interested in creating a personals website that rivals matchmaker.com and other similar websites. The main functionality that I have noticed missing in a lot of the scripts/programs out there in the world - is instant messenging with users who are presently online. I have found this Who Is Online functionality in Vbulletin along with the hack for instant messenging.

Now my only question regards the ability to search profiles based on a given criteria such as race, age, hair color, height, etc., etc. The profiles of course would also have to be picture profiles and incorporate an essay about oneself, etc.

I would also want to eliminate the forum functionalities - most likely. The website would be a simple and straightforward website. Users would simply login, create their profile, search profiles, see who is online, communicate with other users online either instant messenging or integrated web email and then logout.

Is there a hack that integrates this functionality into the Vbulletin product? Do you have an example online?

I have noticed that there are quite a few websites out there in the world using Vbulletin as a personals website - but they appear to be working within the confines of the original product release. I would want to offer users of the proposed personals website the ability to perform functions similar if not better than matchmaker.com and similar websites.

I appreciate your thoughts and ideas. Thank you for any help you can provide.