The Better of Bulletin Boards...

[cowax]

I was just wondering if anyone ever used Snitz (http://forum.snitz.com) or UltraBoard 2k (http://www.ub2k.com) before? Are they any better than Ikon, YABB, or UBB?

[BiteTheBugByte]

forget SNITZ, it´s written in ASP and doesn´t have so many features.

Ultraboard 2K is okay, has got a nice admin center and a very clean design and easy-to-use template functions.

YaBB is okay, let´s see how they get it on, cause it´s still very much beta (at least the Gold Version) ;)
UBB = Is antique ;) and I don´t like their miserable support (besides it costs too much money nowadays!)
Ikonboard, yeah, it´s still very buggy (V2.1.7) and not so fast, let´s hope V3 will be much better, then this one would kick ---!
BoardPower is boring and doesn´t have so much features either.
Though VBulletin is great, written in PHP, fast and highly customizable, let´s hope they get their new version out very soon.
BlazeBoard was a free board too, written in PHP, looked very neat but suddenly it disappeared from the Inet, dunno why.


[Edited by BiteTheBugByte on 03-09-2001 at 02:32 PM]

[jw]

BlazeBoard is still in development at bbhacks.com, i know the head developer, we are business partners and he is currently sharing our server.

[BiteTheBugByte]

Originally posted by jw
BlazeBoard is still in development at bbhacks.com, i know the head developer, we are business partners and he is currently sharing our server.

Great to here they´re still alive, I wish em the best for the future.

Besides, very nice hosting packages at blasthosting.com, if the endevour package would have a lil bit more bandwidth I´d go with ya ;)

[jw]

The additional stuff is at the bottom of the packages page :) Bandwidth is a bit steep, sorry, thats what I get it for :(

[BiteTheBugByte]

Originally posted by jw
The additional stuff is at the bottom of the packages page :) Bandwidth is a bit steep, sorry, thats what I get it for :(

Yeah, I figured that, it would be too good to be true ;) but it´s still a very nice offer ...

[Zef Hemel]

Originally posted by BiteTheBugByte
Hm, I think YaBB is crap!
[/B]

Don't forget who is posting here ;)

[BiteTheBugByte]

Originally posted by Zef Hemel

Originally posted by BiteTheBugByte
Hm, I think YaBB is crap!


Don't forget who is posting here ;) [/B]

Ok, sorry, I´ll take it back but it just made me a lil bit annoying that your dev. wasn´t that ...let´s say reliable some times ;) okay, I have to admit that I didn´t check back your sites for a lil while and it really looks good now, especially the Gold Version (though still beta).

Gonna correct my opinion, nobody is perfect ;)

[cowax]

I really like YaBB, but it lacks an admin area. Ikon is good, but the layout of the board itself isn't too my liking. I really like this vbulletin.... still have to climb the latter into php ;)

[atlas]

PHP isn't necessarily better than perl. If you use mod_perl the speed difference is minor, since the main time slow down is the forking off and starting of a perl process. Perl itself is quite fast.

PHP also lacks database abstraction layer - at least in the main API.

-mk

[Zef Hemel]

:D

[w4an]

One of the things that we have found to help create a critical mass of people in a forum is to add email capability (like eGroups). People are much more likely to interact with a forum via email when it is a young and struggling forum. Later when it gets hugely popular, the web site ends up being a better interface (IMO).

Some will tell you that this is a bad idea because the whole idea is to get people to come to your site. What they assume is that you WILL get a critical mass of participants. Bad assumption. eGroups is very successful for two main reasons. One of them is that they have email integration with their forums.

Unfortunately, this is not a trivial thing to pull off, and why you don't see many doing it. I know of only two places you can get this capability...

1. O'Reilly WebBoards - Kind of expensive, and requires you to install it. Nice UI.

2. Shameless plug to follow (beware!)... Spoke Technologies - http://www.spoke.net - We provide a platform for creating interactive sites that includes a forums/email application.

I know of no free service other than eGroups. If you use eGroups, all the content is theirs and you are helping eGroups get more page views, and not you.

Hope this information is of use.

Bill Fisher
Spoke Technologies (http://www.spoke.net)

[atlas]

Originally posted by w4an
Unfortunately, this is not a trivial thing to pull off, and why you don't see many doing it. I know of only two places you can get this capability...


Nice advertisment you posted above...

Sorry, but I think I'll point out that this is false. I believe Phorum has this capability built-in and is also open source.

Again, it's not that hard to integrate that type of capability into an existing site. Set up a email alias that piped to a script that parses that email and enters it into the message board with the normal routines of the program just like it's being posted on the web, provided the script has been coded properly.

matthew
atlascgi.com