Open domain development project

[Christopher Hunt]

I've been thinking about conducting a development project with one of my domains and sharing exactly, step by step, what happens using this forum for the benefit of all potential developers hanging out on namepros!

I have a few hundred domains, almost all are just parked, and as per the many discussions on this board, it is time to try some development, and thought it would be great to share every step for the benefit of the namepros community.

So for step one, I have chosen the domain to use. I recently registered basketballcamps(dot)org [I figured to avoid typing the domain exactly in the discussion so as not to taint future search engine results], after reading how popular these camps are in North America and around the world. I am also actively involved in promoting youth sports programs with one of my companies right now, although not specifically basketball programs (I live in Canada). All permutations of this term (basketball camps) are simply parked or forward to just one particular program right now, so there is definitely an open niche for this right now. Indeed, the domain began to get natural traffic right away (up to 80 visitors a day).

Broad Strokes of the Idea

I envision a nice clean, attractive, easy to use site where all programs are listed by region, date etc., starting with the main market - the US, and where the basketball camp programs are open to reviews from registered users (a la rottentomatoes(dot)com). The site would also include a discussion forum for registered users. Registered users would also be able to receive a monthly newsletter on upcoming camps, deals, etc.

Registration would be free for users, and revenue would come in the form of advertisements for programs. These programs would also be able to interact with their potential, past or current clients in the forum section, providing an invaluable feedback tool.

Priority would be on providing a quality source of information on all programs to parents and the youth attending the camps.

My Current Resources

Hosting - I have.
Website building software - latest Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc.
Experience - great w/ graphics, and old school html, little to none w/ latest online tools such as ajax, cms stuff (wordpress, joomla, etc).
Time - couple to few hours per day available as required.

So this is day one and that's where I am at. And if there is interest in following along and helping w/ all of the invaluable knowledge lurking around this forum, I think this could be a lot of fun, and helpful to a lot of others looking to pull the trigger on some development. I will be completely transparent about every thing that happens, to make it a truly open source project. I've always really liked that model, and think it will work well with a project like this.

So, looking for any comments, suggestions for steps 2, 3 etc., and let the project begin!

Cheers,

Chris

 

[Diabro]

This sounds interesting. I look forward to watching this. Good luck.

 

[Coopey]

Until a few years ago I only bought names to develop, and a lot of purchases are still with a view to eventual development (I am only just coming more and more into sales of domains) so this interests me too. I'd like to see a lot more domainers develop sites into something and if your thread inspires this then it gets two thumbs up from me!
:tu:

I know very little about your niche (and am even a little surprised that such a term, for on of the US's top 3 sports could be described as 'niche') but your idea sounds reasonable.
Are you coding from scratch, or is your review system going to be based on some pre-existing script? (Because I can imagine more domainers are going to be interested in uploading a few PHP files to their server than typing out lines of code). Although I've said I know little about the user you're targeting, I am imagining content is going to be far more important than style- how are you planning to get a number of basketball camp reviews in quickly? Marketing aspects are going to be just as, actually probably more, important to domainers than development...

 

[Christopher Hunt]

I've done some cursory market research and there are no shortage of basketball camps (and clients) to market w/ this project. For example, Nike even has a large basketball camp program. A Google search of "basketball camps" scores about 170,000 results.

The model I like for the main site is very much like rottentomatoes does for movies, with reviews from any registered users, but I would feature the best written reviews.

I see the forum as a separate section where users (and also the basketball programs) can interact and discuss camps, issues, etc.

First thing I will do (which is one of my strengths) is mock-up a graphic representation of these concepts to share on this thread.

The point raised about what type of scripting structure to be used, is definitely going to be the biggest hurdle, as that is where my experience most lacks, but that is where I hope the interactivity and transparency this project will help myself and others diving into this new age of "web 2.0" development.

graphic mockups/concepts to come by this weekend.

and thanks very much for the feedback so far!

 

[cache]

supply and demand:
supply: a lot of supply, many of us have a hundreds of names
demand: no demand, no one wants to develop someone else's domain. This is because
registeration is very cheap, anyone can register a domain. Everyone would not
mind to develop their own names, but not someone else's.
Your baby may not prettier than that of your friend's, would you raise your baby or your friends'?

 

[Christopher Hunt]

supply and demand:
supply: a lot of supply, many of us have a hundreds of names
demand: no demand, no one wants to develop someone else's domain. This is because
registeration is very cheap, anyone can register a domain. Everyone would not
mind to develop their own names, but not someone else's.
Your baby may not prettier than that of your friend's, would you raise your baby or your friends'?

not sure exactly what you mean, but I am simply going to share my development experience on the forum for the benefit of anyone interested, definitely not asking anyone to develop my domain for me.

 

[mhdoc]

The guy who does Elliots Blog is doing something like this for his Lowell.com site.

 

[Christopher Hunt]

supply and demand:
supply: a lot of supply, many of us have a hundreds of names
demand: no demand, no one wants to develop someone else's domain. This is because
registeration is very cheap, anyone can register a domain. Everyone would not
mind to develop their own names, but not someone else's.
Your baby may not prettier than that of your friend's, would you raise your baby or your friends'?

not sure exactly what you mean, but I am simply going to share my development experience on the forum for the benefit of anyone interested, definitely not asking anyone to develop my domain for me.