It's not language related -- you could build a simple webservice with any language and db. You could take a course on basics of building web-applications in any popular language (Ruby on rails, nodejs or php) and start out there.
Of course if you just want to get a directory out there, you're on the right track of maybe using wordpress with a theme, and some plugins. The language doesn't have much to do with how popular something will be.
Comments
It's not language related -- you could build a simple webservice with any language and db. You could take a course on basics of building web-applications in any popular language (Ruby on rails, nodejs or php) and start out there.
Of course if you just want to get a directory out there, you're on the right track of maybe using wordpress with a theme, and some plugins. The language doesn't have much to do with how popular something will be.