I have been looking for such a service! What took you so long! ;-)
Really a great idea, as there are a lot of website owners out there who haven't the slightest clue how to get a forum up and running. I happen to be one of them.
The only other thing that I think would make money for you would be to make Forums.com a "Forum Search Engine". I am always looking for good forums to visit. I would definitely make it a "Favorite" if you provided such a service. Obviously revenue would be had by charging advertising fees and by having "Google Adsense" up on the search results page. You could still offer your "custom built" forum service as way to get webmasters to your site.
My philosophy is the path of least resistance with the most "pop" is the best way to go with internet ventures.
note: I would seriously consider the "SE" idea. You have the perfect name for such a venture. You could also try to "regionalize" your "SE" by offering "Forums.com" of China type services, "Forums.com" of Japan, etc. Also many corporate types would visit your site to check up on what various forums are saying about their companies. Maybe you could offer a service (for a price) that would alert them of when somebody is "bad mouthing" them.
DotComGod said:
Heres what the site will do since you all have given some great ideas, i figured i would share mine.
Features of forums.com once completed:
-Custom built forums
-Custom built forum skins
-Forum Installations and setup
-Can purchase any of 100 pre built forum templates, new templates added every week.
-Link database so people can submit a link
-Will be coupled with my domain avatars.com so will also do custom avatars.
-Will have a top 100 site list for forums.
-Forum reviews
-Forum of the week spot ad, rotating weekly.
-and the subdomains idea you gave me that I never thought of till now.
Please feel free to add other comments on this or something related.
And.... most of all thanks to all for your input.
-=DCG=-