pls help a newbie!

[stww]

hi,

I'm new here so perhaps a brief intro is in order.

I'm from Singapore, and although I've been participating on several VB forums for a few years, I've never tried my hand at setting one up, nor is my background in IT or programming.

I now intend to set up a portal for scale model car collectors around the world, to trade, buy and sell, and chat in forums. I would really appreciate your consultation on the general concept.

The portal would incorporate the following modules/ plug-ins:
- forums
- picture gallery
- online store/ shopping cart
- auctions (like eBay)
- *I would also like it to be a multilingual site, incorporating language translation in German, Italian, Japanese and Chinese. Is there such a module, or what is the next best solution?

The 4 modules would have to be integrated, meaning back-end integration of user rights/ access across all 4 modules.

I would need some feedback/ suggestions in these 3 areas:
1) Which suite of software would best do the job?
2) What would be the upfront costs in terms of time/ money?
3) What would be the running costs in terms of time (maintenance)/ money (hosting, development)?

Needless to say, a solution that gives me the most bang for my dollar concerning factors (2) and (3) are preferred.

Regarding factor (1), I actually wanted to use the VB platform, but I don't see any online store or auction modules? Would there be compatible store and auction modules that can site alongside VB with minimal bridging? I've been recommended the joomla! suite of products, but some of the reviews of its products have not been entirely flattering. Are there any other options out there?

Any help from this community would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Stanley

[Dan]

As of right now, I've yet to see any bridges or anything similar, but with todays plugin system it should be really easy to bridge them. With Joomla, really there's not much out there in prebuilt CMS style products that integrate well, I've personally tried the Joomla bridge in the past and it didn't work out too well. But anything can be accomplished with a little work, hope this helps