Before writing any code, I sat down and came up with a list of things that I decided were essential to such a site. These included:
A signup process
A login form
A logout facility
Session control
User profiles with uploaded thumbnails
A member directory
Adding members as friends
Public and private messaging between members
How to style the project
I decided to name the project Robin’s Nest, but you have to modify only one line of code (in functions.php) to change this to a name of your choice.