Adding a "Business Directory" Feature to Site?

[delcorsets]

What is the best way to add a business directory to a Miva site? Is this something that could be done within the Miva framework, or should it be it's own independently hosted solution?

I'm looking for a way to add and manage member listings, allow businesses to claim a listing or upgrade to a featured listing, allow customers to rate and comment on listings, search listings by geographic location, etc. I'm thinking that an integration directly within Miva would allow customers to use just one account login for both the Miva store features and for the business directory features. However if two separate systems were utilized then a user would probably need a separate login for the Miva store and for the business directory.

I like the simplicity of using an out of the box solution like BrilliantDirectories, but I don't know if a BrilliantDirectories site and a Miva site could be integrated in some way so that users would only need one login for both.

Does anyone have a directory listing on their Miva site or have any suggestions?

Thanks.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

I think a doable, stock code, approach would be to create a series of custom Customer fields with entries for the information you want to display. Expose those fields to the specific account holders. (You may be able to use Business Account groupings -- I believe I saw some additional functions added to do this; or, just use a price group to identify)

Then, just create a page that runs through the all the customers

<mvt:do file="g.Module_Feature_CUS_DB" name="l.success" value="CustomerList_Load_All(customers var)" />

And looks for the Business Account/Price Group and displays the info from the custom field.

[delcorsets]

Bruce - PhosphorMedia Thanks for the suggestion - that seems like a reasonable initial approach. That solution however might not be able to expand into what I'm hoping to accomplish down the road. I'm looking to create a meaningful resource page that would allow listed businesses to add images, description, promotions, etc to their listings. Simple listings are free, and business owners could pay to upgrade to a featured listing giving them higher placement in the list, larger listing size, etc. (Think an industry-specific, pared down Yelp-type template.)

If I were to go with a 3rd Party solution like BrilliantDirectories what would be the best way to integrate with a Miva store? Perhaps setting up one or the other as a sub-domain?

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

No nothing about those 3rd party solutions, but if you want something truly like yelp, then that would be the way to go.

Supporting images, text, etc could also be done via Custom fields (using memo fields for example) but it would not be 'customer' friendly in that, they'd probably have to use raw HTML in those fields. You could possibly marry it to a module like Clicked (scotsscripts.com).

Personally, i'd have them submit the info to your organization and then publish it yourself as a means of providing editorial oversite. IMO, you don't have lawyers that yelp, others have, to have an open platform :)