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A geographic needs based "social development collaboration platform"
Traditional Development organizations all too often work in silo's with the result that there may be several organization working in the same communities with duplicated efforts. Why not create an open collaboration platform which starts with the COMMUNITY & LOCATION ALONG with its needs. Various organizations (international development agencies, local ngo's, academia, private sector) can collaborate on developing and implementing long term sustainable solutions and share progress along with SROI (social return on investment) figures.
Jimmy Strobl 30+
Ricardo Kagawa
I'd pick close friends or trusted coworkers for a start, but only if I could trust them to remain engaged and active in the platform, even with the very small user base and the beta status. As it became more stable, you could ask them to invite their trusted peers, and so on. As soon as it becomes good enough for releasing, it could be opened to the greater public.
On the other hand, I think it would not be a good idea to get a big player (an organization, for example) for the initial phase, unless it shows a pretty good level of commitment. They should only be accepted when your platform is convincing, because their presence could sensibly affect your whole user base (their support should help a lot, but if they become dissatisfied with the platform they could make attracting more users very difficult).
Your few trusted initial users probably already belong to your intended user base, or know people that do. So it would not be a bad start. If everything fails (if you don't have enough trusted peers), you can still look for some initial users through Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn. In this case you would have to be extra careful about their commitment, but it should still work fine.
James McGuiness
It takes a lot of thinking to find the few nerves that are not being touched that the entire world will feel (in the long term) if some media technology hits it just right. That's what my body has been standing under trying to figure out for the last, oh, many years give or take. I know this can be done in a way that can start with a limited number of people and a limited number of innovations so that casts of thousands and purses of billions are not necessary. The cost of one Hollywood romantic comedy would probably do it. If it's "free", it equates into "valueless". If it's simply "collaborative" it means "non-competitive" to many folks. IMO, money talks and every effort was developmental worth--even failure shows what NOT to do. No guts no glory.
Shahida Saleem 50+
Ricardo Kagawa
I didn't mean that your solution should be implemented as an open source software, I sort of thought it would eventually be like that. What I actually tried to say is that your platform or process should work in a similar way the open source software development works. They are already used to collaboration, and many OSS project hosts resemble (or are in fact) social networks. You could learn a thing or two from the OSS community, to help you devise a process that might actually work.
*So I didn't mean it as a choice for the technology end, I actually meant it for the organizational end.*
You could as well plug it to the main social network platforms like Google+, Facebook and LinkedIn to get extra visibility for the technical, common or professional people. You could even plug it to sourceforge, github, stackexchange or kickstarter (if they offer the appropriate API) to get support from software developers, other specialized communities or funding for individual projects.
Also, the wikipedia community might have some useful insights, because they are also used to collaboration and sharing.
Shahida Saleem 50+
Ricardo Kagawa
I think you will find it instructive to know how this stuff works (just take a look at wikipedia for a start, then find an OSS project and ask them by mail or by forum). Maybe they could even offer themselves to implement your idea for free?
After your idea has matured, you could try Kickstarter. You could get some funding this way and bring up a web server with the help from the OSS community.
I am not experienced enough to give the details myself, so I am only pointing an interesting way to make it happen. These guys are already very experienced on sharing their solutions, so you might find some useful insights.
Michael M 30+
Shahida Saleem 50+
Michael M 30+
Ricardo has some very practical startup ideas.
Nico Driessen