If you couldn't figure the title out, you are likely not one of ezboard.com 's target audience. The appeal of the name is rather lost if you don't pronounce your z's the American way (zee). Don't let that put you off though... ezBoard is an easy to use, reliable forum system, based around a ... Read review
Advantages: Easy to use, Passport style universal login. Many features. Disadvantages: Expensive, lack of control
...are likely not one of ezboard.com 's target audience. The appeal of the name is rather lost if you don't pronounce your z's the American way (zee). Don't let that put you off though... ezBoard is an easy to use, reliable forum system, based around a large friendly community. Sure it has not yet gained widespread appeal in Europe, but I'm sure that will slowly change. Daily, the number of British and European communities grow, while there are boards ... .../>
So what is ezBoard? Well, it is a forum or messageboard system that is extremely easy to set up, and customise. In addition the framework of the board is hosted independantly by ezBoard, which makes it much more suitable to beginners, unlike its chief rival phpBB, which necesitates a reasonable amount of technical know how and initial investment.
Most users are introduced to ezBoard by joining currently existing communities. ... more
If you couldn't figure the title out, you are likely not one of ezboard.com 's target audience. The appeal of the name is rather lost if you don't pronounce your z's the American way (zee). Don't let that put you off though... ezBoard is an easy to use, reliable forum system, based around a large friendly community. Sure it has not yet gained widespread appeal in Europe, but I'm sure that will slowly change. Daily, the number of British and European communities grow, while there are boards worldwide on a wide diverse range of topics and interests.
So what is ezBoard? Well, it is a forum or messageboard system that is extremely easy to set up, and customise. In addition the framework of the board is hosted independantly by ezBoard, which makes it much more suitable to beginners, unlike its chief rival phpBB, which necesitates a reasonable amount of technical know how and initial investment.
Most users are introduced to ezBoard by joining currently existing communities. After a reasonably simple signup process, you create a global ID for yourself that can be used on any ezBoard. There is no need to provide registration details at all anymore - and you can simply surf from community to community. The control center allows you to choose an avatar and create a custom signature, while for the more advanced users custom css skins can be introduced to radically modify the layout of your personal information page.
However at all time, ample help is provided, and the options remain clear, meaning that even those users who have no clue about html or css, still don't feel lost in all the available options. That is the beauty of the system. Extensive customisation is possible, without overwhelming those who don't want, or do not yet know about (or how to use) these features.
After signing up, the process is relatively simple. You browse the communities that interest you, and offer your opinion, views, greetings - whatever you want to say really - by posting these as replies on the messageboard. You can create new topics of your choice, or add polls. The only suggestion is, like any community on the internet, is that you "lurk before you leap". Take a bit of time to get to grips with the community, and get a 'feel' for the style. Remember you are a guest at first, although I have no doubt that most communities will welcome you with open arms. I've been members of several communities and found that most are composed of goodwilled people who do their best to make you feel welcome.
After being an active member of a number of communities, a users tends to formulate their own ideas about how a community messageboard should be run. Most users at this point tend to create their own messageboard. There are two types of messageboard. Free and Gold.
Free communities have limited features and suffer from quite annoying, and sometimes intrusive popup adverts. Gold communities, tend to be the more active ones and have all the features available and are faster. Luckily when creating your new messageboard, you are given 30 days of Trial Gold status, allowing you to 'trial' the product before eventually deciding (in most cases) to continue the board by going full-time gold, or to persevere (and usually abandon) with a free board. Currently there is an introductory offer of 3 months gold for $9.99
Be aware though, that after your 3 months introduction, your gold status will come up for renewal. ezBoard calculate their renewal rates based on thread views and posts. A busy board can become very very expensive, and you will need to rely on the goodwill donations of your members to keep it going. Some communities find it easy - some very difficult. However when your community goes gold, the founder (thats you) is rewarded with an ezSupporter subscription.
Which brings me back to user accounts. When you first signed up to ezBoard you are asked if you would like to buy an ezSupporter subscription. This is the premium user account and currently costs $7 for 6months. The first benefit is that it means that the communities you visit will no longer be charged on Gold status for the threads you view and the replies you post, thus reducing their gold renewal fee. Secondly it enables access to an ezInbox - a private message system that can be used to send messages to anyone on the ezBoard network. Thirdly it offers other perks such as a gold status symbol, allowing anonymous board viewing, and being able to link multiple accounts together.
So I had probably sum up the products on offer:
Global User Account - Free Global ezSupporter Account - Free with Gold board account or $7 / 6months
Board - Free Gold Board - Free for first 30days, $9.99 for first three months, variable price thereafter. Includes Ezsupporter account for founder.
ezBoard then can be used for free by both regular users and those people who wish to become community hosts. However the experience is greatly increased by subscription to the various programmes.
My criticism of ezboard is this cost. Again I must compare it to its chief rival phpBB. ezBoard can for some communities become very very expensive. I am member of one community where the gold renewal for 6 months is in excess of $500. However do not be fooled. While phpBB software is free, and the setting up of a server can be done relatively cheaply, the cost of hosting a bandwidth swallowing messageboard by yourself can in some cases equal the cost of having ezBoard host its equivalent. Usually however, this bandwidth can be found at much cheaper rates, although usually with less reliance. It then becomes a matter of personal choice, of whether to pay a little bit more for reliable and easy to use ezBoard, or for a phpBB system that is under your direct control and responsibility.
Some people prefer this control. Other's don't.
In summary ezBoard is a fantastic answer to a messageboard need. While it may seem expensive at outset, it's ease of use and reliability more than makes up for this. You could easily use the software for many years for free, or may be tempted by the premium products. In any case, if you are tempted, why not pop a sneaky view at a creative arts community that is a long standing member of the ezBoard network. It is really only by trying for yourself that you can really get a feel for this product.
Advantages: Erm..... nope can't think of one Disadvantages: Where do you want me to start?
Ezboard began with promise. You could do quite a lot with limited knowledge. It didn't cost a fortune to get rid of adverts, but even then they weren't exactly a problem and most people could also take out their own support to ensure they could surf around without having to worry about adverts - on any Ezboard.
And then along came 2004. And the founder went. Apparently still giving help and advice but no longer in control. No - they had a new CEO ... ...to go wrong! Now I wont claim Ezboard before them was perfect. It did have its own problems - but you would expect that with just about any online system no matter how large or small. But the problems at Ezboard began to mount, and then in May 2005, most boards lost data due to a huge Data loss situation. As claimed by Ezboard a hack - but never proven to be that.
We lost huge amounts of our board, and members ran! This was the straw that broke ...
runetune 05.08.2007
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of ezboard.com
Advantages: Great and easy to use Disadvantages: -
Ezboard.com ;
I use EZboard because I like their customizable options and the fact that they are easy to use and their boards are easy to customize and to tinker with the options. There are two options - a free version and a paying version.
Free Version
-------------
You get most of the features of EZboard but have pop ups and banner ads over the screen. This is suitable for most however some dislike the fact that swear words are censored.
The ... ...pay for and everything is unlocked. You can have the filters off and all the extra customizable options unlocked. Also there are no banner ads or pop ups anywhere.
So all in all this is a great package to get the Gold. I have purchased Gold and it is so much better to use than the free vesrion because I do not have to continually close pop ups and evade banner ads. But the free version is really well made too and is easy to use.
So I must givemy ...
Marshwwf316 30.09.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of ezboard.com
Advantages: Companies are polled to see which ones are paying or not. Warnings are posted.You can remain annonymous. VAS will research Companies for you. Disadvantages: none
VAS - "Victims Against Scams" hosted at Ezboard was originally started to help a group of people who lost their money to a 'scam'.The scam Company claimed they would make between 10-100% profit per month.The people considered they were investing in their Future in what they saw as a Stock situation. The Company completely emptied the investers accounts and told lie after lie until a few of the Investors decided to fight back and report the Company ... ...and this was when more people came forward to report their losses.(They were too frightened before because of misconceptions regarding Government interference). More and more Companies started showing up online and this is when the forum called "VAS" was created.
We are a voluntary group of dedicated people doing our 'bit' to help others and to make the Internet a safer place to be. We are not attorney's and have never claimed to be.We go directly ...
kiwiana 14.03.2001 (18.02.2001)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of ezboard.com
Im an amature web designer myself and have create various sites and am training to be a professional web site designer.
All webmasters need feedback on their visitors and with personal sites especially ezboard.com's forums allow you do obtain exactly that in a creative easy customisable and stylish way.
EZboards give u the oppourtunity to create multiple unrelated "boards" that you can host on their servers FOR FREE.
The customisation of their ... ...a log-out page insert HTML control which of your mamber get access to which forums, allow you to post images flash HTML and other emoticons in the posts.
The board itself allows you to insert HTML to customise the way the overall forum will operate.
The only disadvantage of using ezboards.com's free service is the fact that there are pop-ups and banner adds apprearing on the forum pages. However any1 can put up with a few banners here or there, ...
skpsirwin 07.11.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of ezboard.com
Advantages: Easy to set up, little management required Disadvantages: Very expensive if you have a clue, limited message storage, no attachments, iffy security, hide between ToU when things go wrong
Initially set up by someone with little or no knowledge of message board systems - their target clients - we found the limitations of ezboard overwhelming: limited message storage, no attachments, very expensive*, prone to being down, etc.
The straw that broke the camel's back was when we lost over a year's messages in May 2005 when they claimed they were hacked. The alleged hacker also somehow managed to delete all the backups - hardly confidence ... ...to ezboard's lax security. After a month's false promises, ezboard eventually hid behind their Terms of Use which say the 'service' is provided "as-is" so tough! They also refused to repay the sums our members had put into our community chest and which we hadn't used.
We've since moved to a self-hosted vBulletin board which is about as comparable with ezboard as the Japanese bullet trains are to Stephenson's Rocket...
Check the Wikipedia entries ...
Captain_Blue 16.09.2006
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of ezboard.com
