I have a very specific project in mind that I would like to do on my own. It's high time I learn a little bit of backend.<p>I have an iPhone app (already made) that requests an ad in two parts - an image, and text. We currently use OpenX to deliver our ads, but our needs are much more simple, and we'd like the control of rolling our own solution.<p>So, I would like to create a simple backend. Database that holds the image, text, link, mobile link, and advertiser info. Then some sort of script to pull and deliver that info to our iPhone app.<p>Also, I'd like a basic set of analytics: impressions, clicks, maybe geo, etc. should I build this in or integrate Google Analytics or go with something like MixPanel?<p>Some details about our expected performance. We currently have a 512Mb VPS (Linode). We have between 400,000-500,000 impressions each month. We would want to build something that could scale much larger.<p>I'm drawn to Ruby, but want to use the best and easiest setup for the project. Python? PHP? JavaScript? I don't know much about databases... MongoDB, MySQL, nosql?<p>As always, thank you for your responses and help.