for W3c validation

I don’t know how many of you read TechCrunch regularly, but TC added forums to their site on Thursday. It’s a cool addition to their growing network and I think they are well on thier way to creating a nice little web 2.0 community — interesting to developers, marketing gurus, CEO’s, and program managers alike. Right now, they have forums to discuss business development, give forum feedback, give/get company reviews, technical discussions, and of course, a general TechCrunch lounge to discuss everything else. It will be interesting to see how large the forum gets and what direction TC expands it to. Having an active community focused on web 2.0 to connect with others who share similar interests will be very useful for those working in the web 2.0 industry (or looking for a job).

I’m not sure how Arrington sells his ads, but I’d guess either on a CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) basis or just a preset fee per month (sponsorship). If he’s selling his ads via sponsorship placements at a set fee, I bet he’s planning to add some CPM advertising fairly soon or revamp his pricing structure — I can only imagine that the forums and their MyBlogLog community are dramatically increasing the page views to sell ads against. The potential revenue available as a result will probably be too hard to leave on the table.

With a high profile site like this adding forums, it’s almost a given that numerous blogs will be adding their own forums in the next 3 months. As a side note, congrats to Jive Software (more info about them on their blog) for landing TC as a client to use their forum software – great press for Jive. The Zillow API forum runs on Jive and I have to say, I love the platform.