Rich, I've been reading this thread with interest. Some things came to me so I'll breadcrumb through the points here to some conclusions.
1. You have a great name, probably one of the top dozen names of truly great words about connecting... whether through business, dating, search engine, blog, whatever. It's an ambiguous name that can cover hundreds of meanings... and because it doesn't have a clear immediate meaning (like 'dates') then it becomes incumbent upon you to find one that works for you, personally and business-y. Yes, I make up words as I need them. Short version: great name, huge potential, and you want to do something huge that reflects that and becomes a smashing success.
2. ANY uses would work for you, given the right ingredients... providing a valuable service, filling a need, helping people get/find what they want, etc....if you developed properly. 'Properly' being the key word. You could choose any of the ideas mentioned previously in this thread, and if it's done the right way it would succeed. That's what right way means, but of course we can't see into the future to know 100% the right way
3. Development can really only go two ways: if you had a clear use for the word, something that set your passion on fire, then you'd just do it and keep at it until it very obviously succeeded or failed. That's not the case here, because otherwise you wouldn't be looking for ideas. So the second way is to determine the best use for this name based on other factors.
4. You're unclear about what those other factors are. You've done a lot of research, thinking and trials of course, yet you still don't have enough promising facts and figures to make a good stab at narrowing down to 'one kind' of website; there are so many possibilities and they're making your thoughts run all over the place on this, putting out threads in multiple directions and hoping clarity will peek through for one specific idea/topic.
5. One clear thing seems to be: you don't feel in your gut that you want to start with something, right out of the gate, that involves a TON of work... development, dozens of people, months of building and organizing, massive capital, massive marketing, and trying to buck huge competition. I'm getting the feeling from what you've said that you want to work hard, but with a smaller, more intimate group, and do something you feel comfortable with, both in size and in topic... keeping that eye out, of course, on that bottom line of making this site pay off for everyone.
That brings us to some conclusions: First, it's Sunday and I seem to have nothing better to do than write in this thread on my day off. Second, I should be shaving my head now but I don't feel like it, I feel like writing. Third, I just had a nice walk along the riverside, and none of the other peoples' dogs barked at me today, a sign that things are looking up in the world, ha.
Now, to the conclusions about your name:
It's premature for you to be looking far ahead with so much energy; without a clear idea of what you want to do, there is only one answer: you need more information. With enough info, your answer will arrive. Right now it seems like everyone's concentrating on what the full-grown tree will be... rather than concentrating on finding the right seed.
Let the name itself tell you. Since it's an ambiguous name, dive into that ambiguity. There are many ways to do this, but why not simply go with the one you mentioned, it will be as good as any? You mentioned a minisite. I could tell that you were wondering about a minisite only as a temp action, to have something 'sitting there' on the site while you came up with the 'real' idea. But why not use the minisite idea FOR coming up with the real idea? Be proactive with it rather than using it as a throwaway temp?
Since LINKS is an ambiguous word of many possibilities, if I owned that name - and had no clear vision for it yet - I would set up some short-term, aggressively proactive experiment with it.
First, I'd use the site itself for research into possibilities. Sticking with the minisite idea of yours for example, pick 3 - or 5, or a dozen - of the topics you'd like to work with. Make a minisite of around 5 pages for each of those. Nothing extravagant, it's an experiment, just something well-done that would take 2 days to build. Toss on adsense or step into affiliates.
Leave each site up for the same amount of time... a couple weeks, a month, whatever it takes for you to compare stats across each site.
If it's business, try 5 pages for that site, each with a top keyword like 'new businesses', 'small business', 'business loans', 'business leads', whatever, and monitor each page... visitors, origins, time spent there, links clicked, all of it... like a hawk.
Then try it with a 5-page dating minisite. Then a search-engine overview minisite . Then.... ?? Other genres.
Second, I would take the info gleaned from the stats of each kind of minisite and see where any 'spikes' were... see which pages people really visited and clicked ads on, see which overall sites performed best. I wouldn't necessarily go with the 'one with the most', but I'd at least have a lot more information to narrow things down with, and more accurate info than you'd get with parking the name.
I'd take those stats, together with my inner feeling of what area I'd want to get into with development, and probably, by then, be getting at least an idea of topic, subject.
Once you've done enough of that kind of SMALL experimentation into topic, then you start posting on the forums - like this one - for unique ideas about that topic, some service or tool that people might be attracted to, something that fills a need there. Ask anyone, everyone. Never know where a small spark will strike you.
Right now you're topic-surfing; you don't know which direction to take. Use minisites - or some other method - to find that topic. It's premature to find the WEBSITE and IDEA for that topic, yet. Small, ordered steps: do more research. Find the topic. Then look for inspired ideas about that topic.
Third: start small, comfortably. It seems, with a huge name like that, you're trying to find a 'google-killer', or a 'blogger-killer', or a 'wordpress-killer', and that will deflate any plan you ever have for this name. It's like trying to think of a TV show that you can start in the same time slot as American Idol or Survivor. Some people want to try that... but to most of us it's suicide.
Instead, start off like those shows started off, and like 99.9% of the top websites started off: small. Like a family. Intimate. Friendly. With personality, and with some - even simple - tool or service that fills ONE SOLID NEED.
You can either brainstorm an entirely new tool or service, or provide an established one but with some new quirk or innovation that improves its appeal/useability.
Put in enough investment - yours or OPM - so that it looks and operates very well. Start out small enough that you can work out the bugs before it's huge, yet still looks/operates well enough to attract a large userbase.
The way you presented your needs in this thread was just a little too nebulous; I would say something like:
I need 2 things from Namepros members: I need to take these dozens of possible uses/genres for this name and narrow those down to one, how do I do that? (my personal answer: a little more investigation... like using your minisite idea as a proactive measure; creating multiple sites, each one live for a defined period, then comparing them against each other to see what the type-in visitors seem to be most interested in);
Then I'd say: I then need to create something unusual around that topic; something that will generate 'buzz', something that won't cost the earth - and a hundred employees - to start, something that beautifully fills some even simple need, some new tool or service to build the idea of the site around, or some new, as-yet undone take on an old idea. (My answer: without first finding the topic of choice, it's premature to try invent the idea. The moment you finally decide 'dating' or 'business' or 'search engine' arena, then you will get very clear, imaginative, targeted suggestions from people. And hopefully some great, new, startup website idea. But right now, people can literally throw thousands of ideas at you and nothing will stick to the wall... it's still premature).
The internet's the soil; find out, for yourself, what kind of seed you want to plant. All you need is to narrow down to a genre, not an idea. Once you choose a genre/topic, the ideas will flow. I'll give you a dozen good, unusual ones, for any topic you decide on... when you decide on that topic for sure. I have a killer imagination. You're still letting your search for a killer idea steer you away from your search for a topic. Any topic will do, just find the one. Forget the 'idea', the tool or service, for now.
Summary:
- a little more research into a handful of potential topics... what kind of subject you want to build a site around, but not the actual idea of that site... yet. Sometimes the idea comes first, but usually that only happens when people know in which area they want that idea to dwell... 'I want a dating site that can...', 'I want to set up a video site where the average person can...', 'I want a search engine that gives clear, relevant...'. You get the idea. It's 2 things, not one: the subject, and the idea/service provided around that subject. Clearly delineate the two.
- put the research together with your gut feeling, and pick one subject that feels right in your gut and makes sense on paper. Hint: there's no right or wrong topic. Every topic in the world can spawn a great new idea. The important part is PICKING ONE, not the one you pick. If that makes sense.
- once you have that topic, put out feelers for ideas on it... a new tool; a new service; a better way of doing something old; filling a need; creating a need and then filling it; inspiring people; entertaining people; etc. The ideas will roll in.
- eventually an idea will roll in that punches you in the gut, in a nice way, and you'll have no doubts except the unreasonable ones.
- when you start building upon that idea, start with balance: stick with what you know, what you know you can learn/get, and then... just to stretch... include a little of the impossible and try create that too.
Boy, I'll bet the people reading this are thinking I actually wrote it for YOU, Rich. Ha. But I didn't offer any ideas - yet - so I don't qualify for your 'finder's fee'. All the above drivel is only one single direction, out of many you could take. But it's the one that came to me, and I wanted to present it clearly... it's helping me work out something I've been thinking of myself lately, so you could say I was writing for myself.
But I'll hit the 'reply' button and regret it later at leisure, maybe some of it will cause an inbreath in someone...
Okay, time to shave the head; anything over 3 millimeters and I feel like Grizzly Adams. Or Grisly Adams.
