I have seen couple of sites with sociaengine, personally i think socialengine is a expensive script , i would rather install joomla , install joomunity component ( a dead joomla social network comp but very good base ) , and a coder located in Asia would be more than happy to make it up to what you need for $500 bucks
I am a living example of failure of social networking sites , since 2007 i started this quest to make a Nepali Social networking site , why nepali because there arent any Nepali Social network site, it would be a great site with proper resources and marketing. But In last 3 years i probably have installed over 30 script . I worked on each for a while and at some point i didnt like it , most of the not user friendly , not meant for a high end sites, its great if you just wanna put a site up and get some traffic , some adsense earning.
I was into Joomunity in 2008 , it was a very nice concept and component for joomla but for unfortunate reasons the owner/coder never finished the project properly. I do remember couple of people made their site with Joomunity base , modified it themselves .
Also if you are really looking for establishing a good socialnetwork site, Anahita Social network script it seems nice, i talked to them , if you want to become a partner its $500 bucks , you get all plugings, support , first hand on latest stuff. It is a opensouce project , it will be releasing this summer probably . You can download the opensource code and hire a coder to modify to your need .
I am saving up some money for the Nepali social networking site , i will be using Joomunity probably. Talking to a coder currently , if he agrees on a affordable price. With joomla and joomunity i will be running my social network by the summer hopefully.
