Cool new forum hosting/service: Lefora
I just visited the offices of Lefora, free forum hosting, who is making cool new forum software that goes in interesting new directions that I haven’t seen forum software or services do yet. Stuff like embeddable YouTube videos with just copying the URL. And I +love+ the color theme selector they have.
You’ll see that in the video demo I just filmed with Vinnie Lauria, VP of product.
Paul Bragiel, CEO, told me a lot more about the company and its plans in a separate video.
An example of their new forums can be found on their “fun stuff forum.”
UPDATE: In just a few minutes Vinnie created me a forum.
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May 7th, 2008 at 11:44 am
I thought their forum was nice, not as fully featured as I’m used to as a user of SimpleMachines. But what really left me unimpressed was that setting up their forum creates a subdomain that doesn’t show up in the files on the server. Once I decided Lefora was not what I needed, I had no way to uninstall the software and could not delete the subdomain. Now that forum just sits there on the web, abandoned but unable to be removed.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Thanks Jack, we have plans to go through and remove ‘dormant’ forums, with a confirmation email to the admin first. If you want your forum removed, just shoot me an email at ‘vincent -at- lefora.com’ with your forum name and username.
If you have any feedback on what you would like to see in lefora, we’d be happy to hear it. We’re constantly building out new features, making new releases each week.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Seems really cool. The next time I’m going to start a forum I’ll keep them in mind.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Thanks for the heads-up Robert (I knew following your blog would come in useful one day :) ) I’ve been keeping a lookout for a forum solution for a couple of weeks now, and Lefora looks like it might just be what I’m after, certainly fits the requirements so far, and the timing couldn’t be better.
Cheers. Chris
May 7th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
This is great! And what makes it especially so is that unlike other forum packages, it appears you can easily tailor it to visually integrate with your site. Other forums look too much like you’ve gone to a totally different site. Well, maybe not totally, but they sure don’t have the visual consistency.
What’s more, looking at the front page, I suspect you could set Lefora up to blog.
Very impressive.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Very cool! It’s amazing to see all of the “FREE” services popping up all over the ‘net.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Yes, they were reviewed by another Web 2.0 blog - immediately visited them and created a forum….
Very impressive startup
http://seo.lefora.com/headlines/
May 7th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Yes, they were reviewed by another Web 2.0 blog - immediately visited them and created a forum….
Very impressive startup
http://seo.lefora.com/
May 7th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
“created me a forum…..” sigh! There is no excise for bad grammar when you write for public consumption.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
“excise” sigh! There’s no excuse for typos when you present yourself as holier than thou.
I can only assume you think Robert should have said “created a forum for me.” That’s very pedantic. Plus there were several grammatical errors in this piece. Why’d you just pick on that obscure one?
The whole piece, though, is casual, conversational language. As blogs generally are.
So lighten up, Steve. There’s no need for perfect grammar in a casual forum such as a blog. Colloquial/conversational language and grammar are quite acceptable.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:57 am
trivia: fast embed of youtube videos, flickr photos, etc. using only the URL was pioneered by your buddy zefrank in his social/sharing network.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:54 am
[...] Chris Howard wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpttrivia: fast embed of youtube videos, flickr photos, etc. using only the URL was pioneered by your buddy zefrank in his social/sharing network. [...]
May 8th, 2008 at 3:11 am
It is innovative - tried it out after it was featured on another web 2.0 blog…
seo.lefora.com/
set up took just a few minutes
May 8th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Hi Robert. I prefer some service as Tangler. I think that Live discussion forums is a better way and more integrate into blogs. Do you know? I signal this on my Tlog (in Italian) some times ago.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:09 am
why is there no ability to have RSS feeds from the lefora forum? that seems basic or am I missing something? Why do I need to go to the forum site to read and follow posts?
May 8th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Chris, touché about the typo. Point well taken.
However we would be naive to think Scobleizer is a casual blog. From what I can tell, almost everthing Scoble does on his blog has the goal of promoting his brand and driving traffic to his money making site: from his “Look! I work in high school AV!” picture, to his Seagate ads to his links to his videos. Moreover he apparently writes a column for FC mag. (which is somewhat ironic). So the quality of his writing on his blog is a reflection of the quality of his overall work. That’s the point
May 8th, 2008 at 9:48 am
This is really cool except those Google ads on forum page ;(
May 8th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
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May 8th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Steve, granted. And I’d agree if this blog presented itself as a formal commentary with long and refined articles.
However, I take the view that Scobleizer is a conversational interaction with his readership. The pieces on it are usually brief comments about something he is thinking or experiencing. Conversational language isn’t usually of the same grammatical standard as a refined piece of writing.
This article is simply dialog. And dialog doesn’t have the same grammatical constraints as it allows colloquial language.
Scoble likes the conversational interface - just look at his love of Twitter and FriendFeed. He likes to chatter. He doesn’t want to get all formal, it’s not his style. Well, certainly not here, anyway.