Forum / community idea

[Kyle]

I've had the domain WindowsForums.com for quite a while, and it gets very strong type-ins for an undeveloped forum name. Around 120-150/month.

I'm thinking of developing it to be a forum (obviously), but also to include 'how to' type articles. These articles would be written by random people and reviewed for quality. I would rotate adsense ads giving the writer a large % of the rotation for the life of his article/site. These articles would have to be exclusive.

I think having a more premier domain for this project would help in presenting this idea to potential authors.

What are your thoughts on this if the proper work was put into it? Anyone feel like being an author? Given that this is more of a side project and for fun, I'm not going to give just 20 or 30% to the author. Probably 50%.

[Cutter]

I know that MS is pretty active on their TMs & domains, I'm not really sure if that could be a potential problem or not. I would ask around on some domain forums first before putting a significant amount of work into it.

[Chris]

Ya... that could be iffy.

[Kyle]

Ya i agree completely that its iffy. I looked around a lot on Google, and found other VERY established communities with Windows in the domain name.

[BGray]

There is a risk but it could be worth it. If you're going to have articles I wouldn't go down the "how to" route. You want to offer something unique and MS pretty much has the how to documentation covered.

[Cutter]

I have noticed that "trademark"forums.com or variations are pretty widespread. The most recent case I saw of someone getting in trouble for having windows in their name involved a software company.. so it might be ok. I don't know if these established forums got written permission, or there is some level of fair use involved.

[s2kinteg916]

great idea... good domain... and its only a investment of a couple hundred... maybe up to a 1000 with design.

Alot of people in communities are real helpful though and they usually submit their own tutorials/advice. You also run into the problem later on... when members who have submitted articles have conflicts with writers that you have paid for content such as how come im not getting paid and so on.... I wouldnt really worry much on revshare model... design/promotion is more important...