Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Thanks for your response!

Firstly, I still maintain that a reputation/rating system for users/assistants would be an effective security measure (though imperfect) like it is on Ebay. This has allowed Ebay to be very succesful.

Secondly, Microsoft already built alot of security features into Remote Assistance (even more in Vista Remote Assistance) - many settings that can be manipulated to provide safeguards on many levels. This could be explained in the forum for beginners. Remote Assistance is a Microsoft utility - to answer your question about the particular technology. All the forum is doing is contacting you with someone who wants to help by RA. It does not employ any remote technology of its own. After contact has been made, RA sessions are initiated by email or IM.

Thirdly, you can supervise the entire session! You can see everything the assistant is doing on your screen. This is a kind of natural protection. It would be kinda difficult to get into personal files while the owner was right there watching!

As far as hardware/software support, yes. Hardware could be diagnosed, configured, setup, adjusted, etc by remote. However, physical switches, dipps, cabling would obviously not be adjustable by remote. But atleast one could eliminate soft issues as the problem.

You should come to the forum. I`m giving admin privs to people that are contributing in any way!

Okay, so the site would be strictly for Windows OS systems, and later than W2K, right? I think RA wasn`t present until XP...I think?

Yes, thats correct, RA is only XP and above (and only on Windows OS as far as I know). But there`s no reason why additional subforums couldn`t be setup specific to other "remote desktop" software for other OS`s (though security issues increase). In fact, I envision dozens of various subforums for all kinds of different situations! But the main forum would definitely focus on Windows RA.

Okay, so you should specify that it`s XP (or later).

I think you`re already making your description with the first two lines. Therefore, the third line "Actually get it fixed online by remote control, by thousands of people sharing assistance!" is a bit redundant.

How about if you were to use that to make your specification? Something like,

The only issue is that people having the problem, likely wouldn`t know about RA. Remember, your general client is going to be someone not very proficient in Windows. Otherwise they`d solve the problem themselves, or need only a discussion forum (like Annoyances.org).

What would you title this site? I`m thinking of search engines and SEO.

The sites already setup here: livera.editboard.com. If you can post a description of your problem, you could use this  forum. Windows Remote Assistance is made for novices since they`re the ones that need it most. When getting RA, the recipient ("novice") recieves a link in their email or IM. All they have to do is click it and the session begins. The assistant ("expert") takes over from there. There`s essentially nothing to learn! Its already "plug-and-play" user friendly (thankyou Microsoft .

No, Im convinced this would be a superior way of getting help. If this thing had millions of users, with a rating system in place like Ebay, it could potentially offer near instant "self-repair"!

:-) Let us know, then, how it starts building. This site is a lot about success stories, not only questions about startups.