I was curious to see how things stood. Well. . .

ezboard

ezOP Posts: 1003 Posted: 8/14/01 11:43:24 am A different perspective...

I'm writing this in an attempt to give you our perspective on the recent changes at ezboard. We understand these changes are frustrating, but perhaps if you understand our reasoning, it will make more sense.

Our Original Goals When ezboard was launched a few years ago, we wanted to provide a free high quality online community service. It was during the Internet boom and our vision was to provide a valuable service for EVERYONE. We have always felt that online communities are the future social spaces of the world where people will gather and connect with one another. Our goal was to spread our message to the world.

What Changed? Everyone, including us, thought that advertisers would support the Internet boom. WE WERE DEAD WRONG. Many companies that believed this are now out of business. What's even more ridiculous is that NEW companies that are starting up now have not learned this lesson. I come across other FREE message board providers all the time and I just shake my head and wish them good luck. Usually they are not around by the time I go back to see how they are doing.

This is precisely why the CSC BLUE program can no longer be offered. We are already taking a huge risk by allowing communities to sign up for another 6 months. We felt this was the best way to ease into this transition. If advertising improves, we will consider offering this program again. However, based upon what we are seeing, I wouldn't count on it any time soon.

Note: CSC GOLD and the FREE (ad-supported) versions will continue. All CSC BLUE boards that do not renew will simply become FREE versions and begin to see advertising similar to our FREE versoin.

Why ezboard did not Die The critical decision for us happened about 6 months ago when people began to realize advertising was not going to work. We made a key decision to stop focusing on Internet advertising and instead focus on building value and features to provide the foundation of our subscription program today. CSC, Community Support Communities, was born and it is a big reason why we did not go out of business. I suspect many other companies will follow our lead and in fact, several companies are looking to partner with us because of many of the changes we have made.

We Think You'll Be Back Many people ask me why we seem so calm or nonchalant about communities leaving ezboard. The reason is because we know we offer a high quality service at a great price. Many people HAVE left, and returned. Whether it was because they went to a FREE board that went belly up or because they realized that hosting it themselves was a LOT more work than imagined (as well as being more expensive). Sometimes, by letting things go, they come back with a deeper appreciation for what they had in the first place.

We hope you don't go, but if you do, we'll be here if you decide to return.

Our Goals Now Right now, we have three main objectives.

1) Continue to make ezboard GOLD the ABSOLUTE best community solution on the planet

2) Continue to find ways to reduce costs in order to make the GOLD price more affordable for everyone. We reduced prices once and we'd like to do it again. Gold starts at just $5 PER MONTH!

3) Continue to have a FREE version. As long as advertising can support it, we'd like to offer it. This will not be easy. If it does need to go away, we WILL give plenty of notice and opportunities to upgrade to GOLD.

How do I know the prices won't change again? The reason why we had to make changes is because advertising rates are variable. If you run a GOLD community, the cost of running the board is factored into the price and therefore it is stable. In fact, the only price changes we have done so far with gold are REDUCTIONS.

Conclusion I hope this has helped to give you our perspective on the recent events and where we are going. We here at ezboard continue to believe in the value of online communities and what we do. Have a great day.

Regards, Vanchau Nguyen ezboard, Inc. Founder/CEO

Edited by: ezboard at: 8/16/01 10:52:08 am

Responses, not all laudatory, at http://login.ezboard.com/fezboardfrm32.showMessage?topicID=162.topic

-- Anonymous, August 20, 2001

Answers

Thanks, Git, as you know I am very concerned about EZ board.... for the most part we pretty much want to stay there if we can...we are discussing options, even moving to another board....but we have greenspun as out back up, and should we leave ez, will will go there to recoup and decide. but it is looking as if we will pay for the 1 yr option, because of the discounts and we are not a huge board. some of our members have said they pitch in, but Kona and I will pay for it, if we get help...great....but we don't want our people to think they HAVE to pay to play....

I will cross post this with our news from ez board that is a few days old.

-- Anonymous, August 20, 2001