Does anyone know if their are any books on building social networking sites?

I have looked online but i have not really found anything, mainly just cms's and i want to build one with php and mysql.

Well for some reason a quick Google search for "Building a social network for dumbies" didn't turn up any results. Building something like this isn't something you want to just do on a whim. A social network stores lots of personal information (at least, usually) so you're going to need to do a lot of security checking if you want people to be able to use it. If you're just interested in what is involved in building a social network, I'd say you can get most of the basic concepts from books on building shopping carts, photo galleries, and CMS. These three things contain almost all of the concepts involved in a social network.

Erm.... ok?

Yea i know their is lots to learn to build o social networking site but i thought that learning this will give me the tools to be able to learn everything about php, i know the basics and i just want to get into more advanced php so since i want to build a social networking site i could just make test sites break them down and rebuild them to learn what to do i am just having some problems with the logic behind social networking sites so i am trying to find more about them.

and i will look into shopping carts and galleries like you suggested thanks.

Hi! I think that books might help but it's better to check on how the actual sites are working.

It's really important to check as well as the Blogs and the online forums like socialnetworkingwatch for example, which lists all new things happening in the industry.

Hope that helps.