211647 Online Book Designer

The concept is basically to create online books (photo albums, cookbooks) via drag/drop while allowing other people to view in real-time the changes that are being made. Main Flow - User logs in and clicks on the create new book link. User is now the creator of that book and has full rights over the book. The cover is automatically created and waiting in the editing workspace of the application. In addition to the editing workspace there is a lightbox pane (showing which photo/graphic assets are in the book) a tabbed pane that allows for import of assets (photographs etc.) from various sources and a notes pane that is used for non-realtime collaboration notes being added to the book for editing comments the final pane is one where the user can upload book templates or choose from a standard set of templates. [note: the sources should be built a plugins so that as additional sources become available the application can be easily extended]. The creator clicks on import photos link and is given the option to import from different online sites (i.e. flickr) or from their local machine. The creator imports photos. The creator clicks on import artwork and is given the option to import artwork from local machine (vector graphics) or from sites like (iStockPhoto). At anytime the creator can edit the cover page or add new pages. Text or graphics can be added to any page in any location or can be resized or rotated easily. At anytime the user can invite a viewer or collaborator user to watch/assist in the creation of the book. The invitation is sent via email or possibly to instant message clients (as a future feature). The viewer can log in and watch the creator or another collaborator edit the book in real-time. If the user is a collaborator they can make changes to the book unless the creator of the book is logged in and has taken control. If the creator is logged in they can grant control to any single collaborator at which time the collaborator would be able to make the changes. But the creator can regain control at anytime. If a collaborator is in the process of making a change the creator will regain control only when the change has been completed (i.e. text edit has been accepted). All graphic and textblock assets are draggable and droppable onto the book pages or cover. They can be resized, rotated, flipped horizontally or vertically. They can be deleted from the bookpage with keystroke (del key) or via mouseclick. I am working on the use case documentation in detail but would like to get an idea of how much something like this is going to cost so I can begin the project work breakdown. I have done some research and have found collaboration engines that are used in flash based multi-player games that I think could easily be adapted to this application. I really don't care what language application is written in because I am well versed in many of them. I prefer .NET or PHP and I think Silverlight of Flex would be the best technology for this. Flex gives me the advantage of turning it into an Adobe AIR product as well.