Bitcoin Forum

I was thinking of starting a bitcoin-only business group.  I wanted to see if there was any interest in this.  I can see a few advantages.

Sharing ideas and resources
I just started my business and had to solve a lot of problems.  Where to get my first bitcoins?  What shopping cart software would I be able to use and accept bitcoins? And so on.  I was able to get a lot of this information in disparate locations online, but having a central place might help.  And it would help to have the ear of other entrepreneurs who had solved the same problems.

Policing membership
I don't mean having some sort of guild-like structure that tries to control entry to the bitcoin market.  I mean that this organization might behave as a sort of Better Business Bureau.  It would be a Better Bitcoin-Business Bureau.  Is BBBB.com taken? Damn, it is.  Anyway, the group would verify legitimacy and endorse any bitcoin-only business that met some set of criteria.  There could be a visual indicator of group membership.

I haven't thought this fully through yet, but I wanted to put it out there.  Any thoughts?

As far as I'm aware, every 4-letter combination is... all 456,976 of them.

bbb.bit and bbbb.bit are available!

+1 for using .bit domains.

If you need to raise starting capital you can always use the bitcoin stock market, but beware it's unregulated and in Beta(probably illegal to if you're american).

http://glbse.com

I would highly suggest /not/ using a .bit domain. If those are namecoin based, it is far too hard to actually connect for 99.9999% of people.

Use it in addition to. You need to grow the namecoin system in order so that it will be useful.

+1, they could have a "reach us at ..., or xyz.bit"

I think this is a good idea, in general, but the BBB shouldn't be used as a model. The Better Business Bureau is a C Corporation which charges dues in order for any business to join and members seem to get better evaluations than non-(due paying)members. IMO, setting any sort of "criteria" invites the suggestion of paying dues, leading to a conflict of interest.

Maybe existing businesses could "vouch" for new ones.

Yeah, I agree.  I would want this to be more like an open source project.  Possibly the criteria could be proposed and voted on by existing members. You'd have to guard against members using their position to limit competition.  If squarewear.biz were part of this organization and another t-shirt company wanted to gain membership, I'd have incentive to vote against them entering (although I wouldn't).   

I'm sure a system of checks and balances can be put into use. I'm at my "day job" right now but I'll give it some thought.

There is an checkout module for Interspire shopping cart (http://www.interspire.com/shoppingcart/) sofware available for Bitcoins:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/?topic=8034.0

Made by the guys of Powerfolder (http://www.powerfolder.com/).

I think this is a really good idea. I was thinking of a website badge, like the BBB, but that actually links to some kind of site anyone can post reviews at. But we should be aware of the dangers.... on topic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/your-money/22haggler.html?_r=2&nl=your-money&emc=your-moneyemb1

There are many reasons to have a bitcoin-only business.  I think that there are many more powerful reasons to accept payments in multiple currencies.  So long as you don't allow conversion, what's the problem?  You may even introduce more people to bitcoins.

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=5713.0 (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=5713.0)

I suggested something like this awhile ago.

http://www.elgg.org/ (http://www.elgg.org/)  might be good to use.

I read your original thread.  What do you think of the idea of not charging fees for membership?  Workable?  Or do you think fees would need to be charged, but conflicts of interest could be solved by crowdsourcing the reviews? 

http://www.mywot.com/  I like their business model.

If you are going to charge for something you need to provide value for value imo.