Business Directory

I've followed this group for awhile, because I have created a lot of business directories outside of Drupal, and have wondered if it could be done easier and quicker within Drupal and it's vast amount of contrib modules. Well, I think it can, now that I do 90% of website development work in Drupal.

Hello everyone.

I am trying to solve the following problem and am wondering if I overlooked anything:

I am working on a listings directory. I'm creating a content type with CCK and want to use taxonomy to organize the different categories. The structure would be something akin to:

Directory Vocabulary
-- Business Category 1
---- Subterm 1
------ Sub-sub term 1
------ Sub-sub term 2
------ Sub-sub term 3
---- Subterm 2
------ Subterm 3
-- Business Category 2
-- Business Category 3
...

While setting up a business directory, I would like each business listing to be able to maintain a buddylist/fan base. SO for example if a business maintainer has new stock, they can simply email all the business fans/buddies.

Now the problem is should I let "businesses" be "groups", with a custom group/business page, so users can join(become fans) of a business, thereby automatically being able to opt in/out of mailing lists.

Or

Should I create a CCK node-type and use usernode to make use of the buddylist module. (not sure how this works though)

thanks

I was doing some research and came across these 2 directories. I thought might be inspirational. Please add more

thanks

www.touchlocal.co.uk
www.localbrit.co.uk

I've been following this topic for a while now and was curious where things stand. Do you have specific guidelines, modules, procedures, etc? NEW MODULE???

And what about the basic listing criteria? ( name, address, phone...)

I am not much of a programmer, but would like to contribute where possible. It sounds like this could be a key feature for Drupal down the road.

OpenResort - www.openresort.org started out as a business directory, and has evolved into a booking engine. For the purpose of a business directory our module works great. Check it out.

Some work towards a Business Directory may already have been addressed by the recently released Openresort Community Edition
http://drupal.org/project/openresort

If someone would like to volunteer to look at that implementation, it may be a reasonably simple task of pulling out the relevant code and wrapping it up in an independent module.