Starting my own online forum...

bloNdie1

Hi Guys,

Not to tread on the toes of the wonderful team at boards.ie, but I want to set up my own discussion forum. (On a totally separate, specific subject by the way - not stealing anyones thunder! :P)

I have bought the ideal domain name, but I bought it as "natural person" as they called it, but I'm not sure if this was the right thing to do. It's a .ie domain which from what I have read are generally more expensive and their seems to be more regulation. (I am a complete non-tech gal by the way..)
In general, the site itself won't be a business per se - I am not trying to sell anything - but hope to maybe get some advertising commission down the line.

So my query is twofold..

1. Should I have bought it a business rather than "natural person"?

2. Will I have to register my domain name as a trademark or a business when it is not for a direct profit?

Any advice is much appreciated..

Cheers guys,

Blondie

Cianos

As far as I understand it, unless you have a registered business name your "natural person" registrations means you can only call the site your name... so something like sarahmurphy.ie.

Is the discussion forum about yourself? (Maybe your an artist, politician etc). If so, then yes it would be the ideal name and registering it as a natural person is totally fine. If it's not about yourself, can you explain why you feel it's the ideal name?

Earning significant money from on-site banner advertising requires very high volumes of traffic coming to your site. If this is your only revenue stream, and the main reason you're taking on the project (as opposed to just doing it for the fun of it which is all good ) then I'd be worried you're being overly optimistic here, for two main reasons; 1. You're targeting the domestic market, which is small and 2. You're saying it's a very specific nichey topic, which will be much smaller again.

bloNdie1

It's not about me personally - not an artist (unfortunately) or a politician (luckily:P)

It is specific but it's something I believe could be quite popular and potentially gain a good amount of interest. I don't want to say too much about what it is exactly but I have carried out a decent amount of research and there does not seem to be anything else that caters specifically for this particular topic. (It is there as a "sub-topic" within larger, broader boards.) To be honest, I think it was pure luck that I got the domain name, really thought it would have been well gone..

Obviously it is extremely early days and I totally realise I am not going to be the next Mark Zuckerburg overnight. But I'm hopeful and curious to see if anything will come of it..

My main concern is that I don't make a mess of things along the way. For example, is boards.ie a trademark? They don't make a profit directly from the people posting (as far as I know) so would they be considered a business?

chicken fingers

Yes, they do make a profit from people who post.
The more content they have up, the better. The more content up, the more targeted the ads can be, and the more people will visit the site, clicking on those ads. Its a little more complex that that, but posting on the site does give the site more value, even if you never click an ad.
(actually Im not certain that boards is profitable, they do have several employees as an expense, not sure their hosting is free anymore either)
Its a company, actually boards.ie existed before the domain was registered, as part of some legal wrangling.

Your forum will only ever cost you money. Unless you have many thousands of wealthy people visiting your site every day you will not make money from plain ads.

Also unless many people want to talk (not just read) about the subject you might find it would be very quiet. A good indicator is to search here on boards for the topic you want to talk about and unless you have a couple of hundred (minimum threads), you will find that either nobody wants to talk about the topic or that a dedicated board already exists.

and best of luck!

Chet Zar

bloNdie1 wrote: »

It's not about me personally - not an artist (unfortunately) or a politician (luckily:P)

It is specific but it's something I believe could be quite popular and potentially gain a good amount of interest. I don't want to say too much about what it is exactly but I have carried out a decent amount of research and there does not seem to be anything else that caters specifically for this particular topic. (It is there as a "sub-topic" within larger, broader boards.) To be honest, I think it was pure luck that I got the domain name, really thought it would have been well gone..

Obviously it is extremely early days and I totally realise I am not going to be the next Mark Zuckerburg overnight. But I'm hopeful and curious to see if anything will come of it..

My main concern is that I don't make a mess of things along the way. For example, is boards.ie a trademark? They don't make a profit directly from the people posting (as far as I know) so would they be considered a business?

Boards certainly is a business They make money in different areas, e.g. paid subscriptions, advertising, Boards Deals, etc. They wouldn't really be looking to register 'boards.ie' as a trademark, as it is their domain name and no-one else can get hold of it. So, their domain name 'is' their trademark as such.

One thing to consider is that there may be a good reason why there isn't much out there on this particular topic and why it is appears as a sub-topic on forums - because the interest in the topic may not be to such a level that warrants having its own forum. If there were a large interest in the topic then it would have its own forum, or lots of them. Then again, there's a chance that maybe someone just hasn't set one up yet - and so it could be you!

The fact that you have a good domain name that matches the topic will also help with SEO. Building content and traffic will be the hardest part for sure.

rolion

i think that is coming like:
-initial kick-off /brainstorming
-market research
-market needs 'opportunity'
-domain and website and board or forum
-content
-management of content:updates,quality,users,spam...
-ongoing/continous promotion ,SEO and so on...

Not so much the domain name tbh...if there is no need of the "idea" !??
I had few good names myself but i failed miserably in ...promoting that "idea".

Registering the business name at least,otherwise it can be easily disputed in the courts...
Domain,obviously,under business name highly advisable.
Profits from traffic (when available) maybe,but better managed as a business rather than an individual.

Good luck...

[Jackass]

you just need register a business name to register the dot ie domain, but if you've already registered it, it's not a big deal.

Down the line, as the site grows in popularity and you start making money (set up site > ???? > profit), you might want to clean up the structure (register the website as a business / trading name) and trademark the name if you want (althought usually just reserved for designs / slogans rather than business names).

When it's up and running let us know and hopefully get some new users

John368

One other thing you might need to consider and that is professional indemnity insurance. This is against being sued for libel, because of something someone has written on your forum. Disclaimers must not be enough I suppose in some countries. I believe, it is more-or-less standard practice these days for forum site owners to have PII - going by what I have read on other business forums