Recruiting database, ezboard agreement unveiled

SEATTLE – Featuring the reporting and expertise of the most inside group of college recruiting experts in the industry, TheInsiders.com has completed the unveiling of its recruiting database, featuring sortable searches, up-to-the-minutes buzzes, commit lists and visit dates.

Exclusive to TheInsiders.com recruiting database is the official data on height, weight, 40-yard dash, 20-yard shuttle, vertical jump and bench reps from the Nike Football Training Camps, as provided by StudentSports.com.

Unique to the industry, users can freely access team-specific prospect lists, complete with ratings and essential information, via the "Prospects" link on the left navigation bar of any TheInsiders.com college team site (to find the Prospect List for your favorite team, click here).

TheInsiders.com earlier took a major technological step forward with the launch of premium message boards and a universal login system integrating network accounts with ezboard message board technology as part of an exclusive strategic venture between TheInsiders.com and ezboard, Inc.

"In rebuilding our network from scratch, we asked our publishers to have faith that we could recreate our publishing system quickly," said Jim Heckman, TheInsiders.com CEO. "We believe we have delivered a superior publishing admin and a more powerful message board tool to the old system and to our competitors. The recruiting database, with advanced search features, is the final piece of software in completing our promise. We now will turn our attention to building exclusive features for our users and fans, and increasing scalability and speed, in a continuing effort to offer the best custom network publishing system in the world."

That system today features the works of a nationally renowned group of experts who are the official recruiting content providers to CNNSI.com and are led by national recruiting editor Brentt Eads of StudentSports.com.

The lineup of TheInsiders.com recruiting experts who contributed to the database includes:

• National basketball editor Dave Telep of TheInsidersHoops.com.
• Greg Biggins and Brian Stumpf of PacWestFootball.com.
• Max Emfinger of MaxEmfingerRecruiting.com.
• Chris Fetters of Dawgman.com.
• David Garvin of HeartlandRecruiting.com.
• Jamie Newberg of BorderWars.com.
• Tom Perrone of PrepAtlantic.com.
• Tracy Pierson and Greg Hicks of PrepWestHoops.com.
• Chris Pool of PoolRecruiting.com.

Their work can be accessed via:

• Searches by a number of criteria – name, position, rating, school preference and others – all of which can be sorted by variables such as 40 times, home state and height or weight.
• Position-by-position breakdowns.
• Player detail pages featuring photos, stats and breaking news on that player.
• "The Buzz," continuously updated breaking news about all your school's recruits.
• "Visit Dates," lists which recruits are making campus visits each week. "
• "Commit List," showing all recruits who've committed to your school.

“We have the best team in the industry – hand’s down – and this is an exciting showcase of their talent and insight,” Heckman said.

In a major breakthrough for user convenience, accounts at TheInsiders.com (www.theinsiders.com) and ezboard (www.ezboard.com) were merged to relieve users of having to remember multiple login/password combinations. The unified logins can be used at TheInsiders.com message boards, as well as to purchase premium products at TheInsiders.com and change or update account information.

Among the hottest ezboard features are Who's Online, which shows other users visiting the board within 15-minute intervals; E-mail Notification, which allows a poster to be notified when someone replies to a topic, and Sticky Post, which allows a post to be kept at the top of any thread.

"TheInsiders.com and ezboard share one major quality - loyalty of their users,'' said Vanchau Nguyen, founder and CEO of ezboard, Inc. "So this is a great match. We have created feature-rich, customizable, Web-based social spaces that marry well with the content and fanatical following of TheInsiders.com sports network."

Premium message boards add value to the Team Pass and Recruiting Pass products. Premium boards create security and exclusivity for communities at team sites, and a place for premium recruiting customers to consult TheInsider.com's top-rated experts, according to Heckman, who was the founder and former CEO of Rivals.com.

Using ezboard follows TheInsiders.com's recent history of selecting industry-leading providers to enhance the network's user experience. Among other recent deals are its licensing of both Associated Press and Allsport photographs, and a syndication deal with CNNSI.com.

"This engineering team has worked on some of the world's highest-traffic Internet applications, including e-mail and message boards at MSN, Hotmail and Rivals.com," said Bill Sornsin, TheInsiders.com COO/CTO and former Rivals.com and Microsoft Network executive. "But it became clear it would take us two years of software development to match what ezboard already had, and integrating our existing technology with ezboard gets great technology out to our publishers much faster."

Some of ezboard's other top features include the many different board layouts, numerous thread and topic modes, custom user profiles, enhanced security settings, user rankings, three levels of administrative access, bad-word filter and availability of emoticons, posticons, HTML and savable signature files to users. Some new features include Hot Post, the ability to designate a post as a "hot post," according to the number of replies, and the ability to have page numbers laid out at beginning of multiple-page topics.

"I'm proud of what our team has accomplished in such a short time," Heckman said, "but I'm even more excited about where we expect to be in the near future."

About TheInsiders.com
TheInsiders.com (www.TheInsiders.com) is a network of more than 100 college and pro team, recruiting and high school Web site affiliates operating on a single technical and business infrastructure. Based in Seattle, Wash., the new network was recently launched by Jim Heckman, founder of the former Rivals.com. TheInsiders.com consists of the key former Rivals' executives and founders including the CEO, top dealmaker, top revenue producer, original CTO with the key engineers, and top Web sites from the former Rivals.com network. The company's major investors include Bernie and Brian Kosar of Cleveland Pacific Ventures, and Doug Moore of Vulcan Publishing, Inc.

About ezboard
ezboard has become the market leader by offering an easy-to-use application that engages people to create and participate in highly customized and personalized online communities, which may be seamlessly integrated with any web page. These virtual communities, like their real world counterparts, foster communication, ideas and commerce. The company is backed by Labrador Ventures, Scripps Ventures and Staenberg Venture Partners. Other investors include Kathy Levinson, former President & COO of E*TRADE Group (NYSE:ET), Mark Pincus, former Chairman of Support.com, and Yosi Amram, President & CEO of Valicert (NASDAQ: VLCT). Additional information can be found at www.ezboard.com.

Find the Prospect List for your favorite team: Click Here