I'm going to build a message board, probably using phpbb [but maybe vB], that will focus on sports in north Mississippi. An area paper already has a board with some sports forums on it, but I think they could be done better.

I want to call it North Mississippi Sports Forum. If there ends up being interest in a southern flavor to it, I will expand it later. Anyway, here is what I'm thinking of.





www.NorthMissSports.com

www.NoMsSports.com

www.MissSportsBoard.com

www.nmsf.net



Initially I was thinking of the first one. But then I started thinking of www.nmsf.com. But the .com was taken. Will it being .net affect it much? Have people gotten so ingrained with ".com" or are more and more thining of ".net" now? Will nmsf.net be easier to remember, or would it be best to type out northmisssports.com?

Thanks for your input.

Anyway, tell me what you think. Which one would you choose?

Since I love short domain names, I am in favor of nmsf.net :D

Lots of people are into that .com fever, but I think a .net would serve your needs perfectly.

I would suggest somethin glike mssportstalk.com or similair.

www.MissSportsBoard.com

Easier to remember because it actually means something...

Like WebhostingTalk.. it would be wierd calling this board

WebHostTk.com
:)

SportsBoard.us

My vote goes to www.nmsf.net

Whatever you end up choosing, you should still get MississippiSportsForum.com or at least MississippiSports.com

nmfs.net is what I'd get. And, as skeptical says, get those .coms to point to it too.

I like nmfs.net best... besides, it's appropriate because there are nets used in sports. I also concur with Skeptical's ideas.

...but if you go to that domain, there is one of those messages like

"Ha ha, we beat you to it. But if you ask us, we'll tell you how much we want to rape your wallet!!!"

Maybe I should just go ahead and inquire. Couldn't hurt. But I know it will be out of my price range. Esp. since I'm not expecting to make $$ on this board/site anyway.

I would go for www.nmsf.net, short, easy to remember and it is initial letters of your board's name. Dot net is not really matter, especially for a forum.

Hi.

You can choose nmfs.net and ask nmfs.com to exchange links.

... just and idea ... :rolleyes:

i vote also for nmsf ,, i really like short domains :)



DesMaster

i wouldnt build a site using the .net unless it had really good keywords in it for seacrh engines.

and a combination of four letters that does not spell a word is not easily remembered.

My initial focus will be the north half of the state. In my forums I'll creat a subforum for the south half and see how it grows. But I'm more familiar with the north. If there turns out to be a large interest in the southernhalf, I'll just register misssportsboard or misssportsforums and rename the site and reconfigure the forums.

I don't know if I'll have a seperate North/South half to the forum (like North Miss Football subforum and then a South Miss Football subforum) or just combine it all in football. But it shouldn't be too hard to expand if the need presents itself. But I figured going with a more focused area to begin with will be better, maybe I'm wrong. But like I said before, there is some action already on a forum that covers this area, and I think that forum can be improved upon.

I think I'm going to start off with using phpbb. It isn't supposed to be too hard to set up or install hacks. We'll see. If the board does really well, I'll bump up to vBulletin eventually. But this is going to start as a hobby, and the wife doesn't want me dropping $160 on board software ontop of domain registration and hosting fees.

(Why do you not hear about yabb or UBB much anymore? They've fallen down the list in popularity, huh?)

Thanks for everyone's help and input. I was one click of the "submit" button more than once for registering nmsf.net. It still seems like a good choice sometimes.

When I get them up and running, I'll let you see how they look. (Are there any phpbb experts on here incase I need some help )

I say go with both the long and the short names. The long, descriptive name establishes your identity, and the short name (acronym) let's the familiar visitor get to you easier. With domain names running arout 9 bucks now, getting both names isn't exactly a major expense.

(Are there any phpbb experts on here incase I need some help )

using the search feature on the phpbb.com community message board, you can find help to just about any problem that you are likely to encounter.