Post #4,959
8/13/01 9:32:14 PM
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Had to post this one...
Just got this in the mail. Emphasis mine.
Dear Blue Admin:
The time is quickly approaching for you and your users to renew your CSC
status for your ezboard. It?s been nearly six months since you purchased
CSC for your community and we want to thank for your support during our
first CSC period. ezboard might not be here if it wasn?t for Admins like
you believing in your communities as well as ezboard.
We do have some bad news for you, though. As of August 31st we will no
longer validate CSC Blue ezboards. The last day you can make a pending
order to purchase CSC Blue will be August 15th. Current subscriptions for
CSC Blue will receive the benefits until the expiration date listed in your
control center. Here are our reasons for this change:
\ufffdBanner advertising, which is the only additional source of support for
Blue communities, has virtually disappeared. We are generating less than
$0.02 per 1,000 page views from banners on the site.
\ufffdSome of our largest ezboards - ones that use the most bandwidth - are
Blue. This, coupled with the lack of advertising, means that the $15 for
Blue does not cover the cost of the ezboard.
\ufffdWe?ve instituted new, lower rates for CSC Gold Community that can reduce
the cost of larger communities by 20% or more.
\ufffdWith Community Chest we feel that we have given all ezboard communities a
way to purchase Gold by accepting donations from their users.
We realize that there are several users who sent in money for Blue for 12
months. In light of these changes, later this month users who overpaid
will receive a separate email regarding how to allocate these funds.
There are now three programs available for converting to a CSC Gold
Community:
\ufffdRenew for an additional 6 months on a reduced rate from that initially
offered for Gold -- $30 for the first 10,000 page views per month, plus $1
for each 4,000 page views above 10,000 per month. Your renewal price will
be shown on the Community Tab in your Control Center.
\ufffdRenew for 12 months and receive 20% off the second six months - save 10%
for the entire period and lock in your account at today?s prices for a full
year!
\ufffdRenew for an additional 3 months at 60% of the 6-month price. If you and
your users have trouble coming up with the full 6-month fee - you now have
this new, easily attainable option.
Don?t forget that you can now use your Community Chest to collect the funds
necessary to renew CSC. This feature takes the financial burden off of the
Admin and lets users directly contribute to your community. For more
information on the Community Chest, click here:
[link|http://www.ezboard.com/help/help_whatis_communitychest.html|http://www.ezboard....tychest.html]
We are working with several companies to provide other services that will
be only available to CSC boards through Community Chest such as Image
Hosting and File storage. Community Chest will provide a new foundation to
allow you to grow and evolve your communities with added services and
features. Renew now and make sure you keep your ezboard ad-free and
eligible for CSC only services and features.
Thanks again for your support.
Vanchau Nguyen
Founder and CEO
ezboard, Inc.
Gee, how surprising. They still don't have enough money, and now everyone has to pay the big fees to keep their boards ad-free.
Regards,
-scott anderson
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Post #4,964
8/13/01 9:56:59 PM
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use the three words lovers use
fine, swell, bye.
thanx,
bill
Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves.
Chuck Palahniuk
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Post #4,966
8/13/01 9:59:57 PM
8/13/01 10:02:37 PM
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I imagine this renders moot the questions re
Keeping the cobwebs off the old cellar and maybe sub-leasing it out to the,
Association of MDMA-crazed Elugelap Body-surfers with Seaweed-pierced Navels - for the sharing of images of their collages of seashells, mounted on the hoods of Morris Minor convertibles with barnacle glue.. as entwined virgins abrade their bodies on the shells in ecstatic obeisance to the Permanent Immovable Post (?)
and such.
er.. good Timing !?
umm.. vegans or virgins will do
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Post #4,998
8/13/01 11:50:45 PM
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So, lemme get this right....
You paid for 6 months of CSC Blue.
Those 6 months are about to end.
But even if they weren't almost up (say, for another community that was only blue-level), then they would just lose their blue status on August 31? And ezShite would keep the money already paid, "apply it to a (higher-costing) Gold membership" and wait for more money to roll in from the admins/community members?
Sounds like a bait-and-switch to me!
Fuckers.
-YendorMike
"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by the skeptics or the cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy
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Post #5,351
8/15/01 9:15:41 PM
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You get your 6 months, but...
An EZ Board post on the help board claims that they will honor the 6 months (if you paid for a year: oops...)
But they did pull another dirty trick: the 15th deadline is only for boards that are not yet part of the CSC program. If you had a Blue board and quickly tried to get another 6 months out of it: forget it. The Blue option was gone at least by the 14th (and the e-mails didn't go out until the 13th.)
And to buy into Gold through the chest thingy costs 50% more than what it should cost based on the rates and stats for my board.
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Post #5,415
8/16/01 10:43:18 AM
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Dumbth...
These users are my rabbit. And I love my rabbit. And I will love him and hug him and squeeze him (for all he's worth), and I will name him 'George'.
A bad paraphrase, this one brought to you by...
-YendorMike
"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by the skeptics or the cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy
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Post #5,011
8/14/01 1:15:27 AM
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You wanna keep the boards ad free?
[link|http://internet.junkbuster.com/|http://internet.junkbuster.com/]
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
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Post #5,016
8/14/01 3:54:45 AM
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The Easy-To-Install Windows Solution
[link|http://proxomitron.cjb.net|http://proxomitron.cjb.net]
Haven't seen a banner ad for ages :)
--
Peter
Shill For Hire
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Post #5,026
8/14/01 10:20:16 AM
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Yabut...
You still use Winders.
'Nuff said.
-YendorMike
"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by the skeptics or the cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy
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Post #5,099
8/14/01 2:57:59 PM
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Do I sense peer pressure here?
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #5,105
8/14/01 3:07:56 PM
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Yes.
...and?
-YendorMike
"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by the skeptics or the cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy
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Post #5,120
8/14/01 3:30:57 PM
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Ineffective tho - we're all such stubborn bastards :-\ufffd
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Post #5,152
8/14/01 4:21:38 PM
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Or safer yet
Put in a firewall (I used a SonicWall) and filter hits from the ad provider domains - surfing sure went faster.
Of course, I no longer have home internet or telephone service - only cellular. Its too hard to get wire run down to the boat.
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Post #5,498
8/16/01 8:54:50 PM
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Firewall on a dialup?
Thanks to Darrell Spice, I can access z-IWETHEY from my apartment in Houston. He threw together a P166 box from parts he had laying around; I just had to buy a hard drive and a CD-ROM so I could install an OS. Anyway, he also loaded up Juno, since it's one of the few remaining free ISPs. But their ads cause the browser to lock up well over 50% of the time. If there was a way to shut out the regular popups and banner ads, maybe this would go a little quicker.
Soon enough I'll call around to see if there are any ISPs that have reasonable monthly rates so I can move around here easier. Damn,but I do miss my Road Runner service running Zone Alarm back home!!!
BConnors
"Prepare for metamorphosis. Ready, Kafka?"
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Post #5,558
8/17/01 12:46:44 AM
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Seems to me
There would be more money in taking the whole thing private.
If Vanchau could guarantee that each board was "private" and that noone outside of the community could see the conversations, I could see him making a lot of money in hosting "gated" seminars. Like the "closed" community I believed that Infoworld was building to attract CTOs, CIOs, and other "monied" technology decision makers.
It seems that a company with a good ethics track record could host "private" bulletin boards for things like J2EE, XML, and other "standards" discussions, as well as publish RFPs online, and allow customers/vendors/etc. to interact through the bulletin board in a "closed" environment.
The media might need to be jazzed up a little to include slide (like Powerpoint) presentations, allow RFPs, Proposals, etc. to be read and question and answer sessions be held. I think it might revolutionize the whole RFP/Proposal process, if it were "good" enough.
BEA and other technology vendors tend to do a lot of this through newsgroups, but newsgroups are really limited in what can be presented. The best hope is to UUENCODE (which many people can't figure out), or provide a URL to a website.
Kind of like AT&T/Evoke and others making money by hosting 1-800 number conference calls. In the telephone market, these conference calls earn AT&T/Evoke and others about $6 an hour (at least that is what someone I know is charged), for basically giving out a 1-800 number and PIN code and making the phone technology available to allow 5-20 people to all be on the call at the same time.
Now, take the bulletin board concept and sell it as a web service to IBM, BEA, EDS, JP Morgan Chase, WellsFargo, etc. Guarantee that all the conversations on the board will be private, provide id/password verification, SSL, etc. and I think you have a business there that's much better than what EZBoard will ever do in the "public" arena.
I have an application for the company I work for. But instead, since we're small and noone provides this, we'll probably just find bulletin board software (Zope, maybe?) and host it ourselves.
But you would be amazed at how many big companies can't do something as simple as host a bulletin board and will pay for a service, just like they pay for AT&T/Evoke conference calls.
Anyone out there interested?
Glen Austin
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Post #5,562
8/17/01 1:31:37 AM
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Isn't that what Inclusion were tring to do?
Okay, I'll go wash my mouth out now... er...
Wade.
"All around me are nothing but fakes
Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
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Post #5,587
8/17/01 8:32:16 AM
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Webex
Everything you describe and more can be done using webex. Bulletin board, white board, real time multiuser chat and remote control are some of the more useful features.
"When it crosses my mind to do something, I don't ask why, I ask why not. And usually there's no reason not to, so I just go ahead. It's given me the strangest collection of hats"
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