I’ve decided to build a social networking website focused on the Korean martial art of Hapkido. I have ten good domain names to choose from and I cannot decide. Can you help? I’d really appreciate any suggestions.

Half of my Hapkido-related domain names are parked at Sedo, and the other half at WhyPark.com where they display Adsense ads. Here are the stats from the last 12 months, except for Hapkido.info which has only been parked 10 months or so.

I’m going to create a website where Hapkidoists and other Korean martial arts practitioners can discuss, share photos, share videos and make friends. I will most likely use Ning, though I am considering Drupal. Ning is so much less work, but doesn’t offer the same degree of control.

I have narrowed it down to the four in red. Out of those, HapkidoVideos.com cries out to be developed into a video sales site, perhaps an Amazon affiliate site. So that leaves the other three: Hapkido.info, HapkidoBoard.com, and HapkidoDojang.com.

1. Hapkido.info - nice and short, and will look awfully good up there in a website header. I worry, however, that many people are not familiar with the .info extension and may not remember it.
2. HapkidoBoard.com - gets the most traffic of all my choices, and it’s precise and relevant. Only problem is, well, it’s kind of boring. I feel “board” already, ha ha.
3. HapkidoDojang.com - “dojang” is the Korean word for dojo. This is what the Korean arts call their training place. I think this domain has a nice ring to it, but I’m concerned that it might be too long or that the spelling might be challenging for some.

So, what do you think? Which of these would you choose to develop? Which is the easiest to spell and most memorable?

Are These Domain Names Dogs?

As you can see, none of these domain names are profitable on a purely parking basis. Several have made nothing at all, or very little. On the other hand, they get some traffic, and I never got around to optimizing them. I parked them and forgot about them, until I decided to tackle this social network project. Still, even if I were to optimize the parked pages they would probably do no better than break even.

Does that mean these domains are a waste of money and should be dropped? I don’t think so (ok, I might drop HapkidoWest.info. But not the others). Once I choose a domain to use for my social networking website, I will build the site, then forward all the other domains to that destination.

Adding them all up, these domains get almost 1,000 unique visitors per year. Build a website, use some Facebook-style viral marketing tactics to grow the membership, some linkbait, maybe a low-key Adwords campaign, and within a year I could see significant traffic. And that means profit.

Popularity: 35% [?]

Share This

I’ve been thinking about developing a few of my domain names into social networks, and I’ve been researching various possible software platforms. I’ve considered such varied solutions as Drupal, Pligg, a combination of Wordpress and phpBB, and Ning.

All of these are open source and free except for Ning, which is a hosted application that lets you build your own full-featured social network. It’s free, but Ning runs ads on your network, unless you pay a (fairly low) monthly fee in which case you can do away with the ads or run your own if you like.

By the way, the Ning blog recently wrote a post on the unveiling of Magicians.com. I remember July last year when the owner posted the following on the NamePros.com forum:

Hello everyone,I’ve owned several excellent domain names for some time, but have not posted them for feedback in a forum like this! If you have any thoughts on value or other for these domains, please let me know! I look forward to your posts! Have a great day,

Magician.com
Magicians.com
Illusionist.com
MagicComedian.com

The respondents valued these domains anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000 each, although one fellow had a unique offer:

I wish I had one of those names. Are you interested in my first born child?

Anyway, I’m glad the owner chose the development route and I’ll be interested to see if he sticks with the Ning platform over the long term.

In the course of my research on social network solutions I came across this fantastic article on TechCrunch, from July of last year:

Part One: Nine Ways to Build Your Own Social Network

Part Two: 34 More Ways to Build Your Own Social Network

Michael takes a superbly detailed look at all the solution providers in the social networking space. I have not yet decided which solution I’ll be using, though I’m fairly sure I’ll go with Ning for those domains that I feel have a good chance of attracting a large user base.

For communities that might be smaller (a few hundred members or less) I will choose a solution with no monthly fees and no cost after initial set up (aside from hosting of course).

Have you developed any of your domain names into social networks? What software did you use? What success have you had?

Popularity: 65% [?]

Share This