Hey everyone,
I've recently signed the contract for a huge project which I will be working on for the next 3-4 months. The project is basically an online auction system (something like ebay.com). One of the tasks required in the project description is to create a mailing system that will allow sellers and bidders to communicate privately
through the auction website. That means both parties' email addresses should stay confidential unless they explicitly exchange contact information.
For that purpose, I'm currently researching the best way to achieve this task. I have two ideas in mind and I'd like to get some feedback from those of you who are more experienced than I am.
1. Creating a mailing system in which the user can send an email to the other user's email address (gmail, hotmail, yahoo...etc) through an email address provided by the auction's website (ex:
reply@domain.com). Then the receiver can reply to the email, which will then forward the reply back to the sender's own email address.
2. Creating a simple AJAX based PM system which gives the user an inbox on the auction website. Once the user receives an email (or in this case a PM) he should receive a notification on his own email address.
So if you were in charge of this project, which way would you go and why?