Any good news? Please help to stop rumors...

[CTXMedia]

No need to get personal guys - we're all interested in what's happening with XF and what we can expect from it going forward.

 

[Kevin]

No need to get personal guys - we're all interested in what's happening with XF and what we can expect from it going forward.

I'm still looking forward to the 1.2.0 updates; a stock mobile style & enhanced spam tools will come in handy very nicely. Hopefully there'll be some surprises to go along with it but I'll happy with what has been announced so far.

 

[BGL]

It was unfortunate and somewhat embarrasing that it expired.

Just when I thought I was out...they...drag...me...back.

Eyup stuff happens but when it happens to a three man start up, in a death struggle with a multi-million dollar opponent at the same time the start up has gone dark on communications on its own website, spending an extra $30 to make it APPEAR you are going to be around longer than a Higgs-Bosun is not an unreasonable response to expect. At that point, given those circumstance, renewing for only a year sends the WRONG message. They had a chance to send a message and they chose poorly.

That short term thinking does dovetail with my bigger concern which is the resources needed to make and keep the software mobile compatible. The mobile issue is more interesting and relevant.

 

[Andy.N]

I'm still looking forward to the 1.2.0 updates; a stock mobile style & enhanced spam tools will come in handy very nicely. Hopefully there'll be some surprises to go along with it but I'll happy with what has been announced so far.

Heck, I would be happy with only the RM released for sale.

 

[BGL]

I'm still looking forward to the 1.2.0 updates; a stock mobile style & enhanced spam tools will come in handy very nicely. Hopefully there'll be some surprises to go along with it but I'll happy with what has been announced so far.

Was a mobile style announced as being in the 1.2 update?

 

[Kevin]

Was a mobile style announced as being in the 1.2 update?

The last official update for 1.2.0 was this one...

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/development-update.25726/#post-311302

 

[steven s]

It was unfortunate and somewhat embarrasing that it expired, but the responsibility for the renewal was with the registrar since it was set to automatically renew (and with auto-renewal it's usually just for the next year, which what most of the competitors are likely to be doing to as well).

The domain owner shares the responsibility. Especially when it's your business.

The XF site itself didn't go down - you could still access it directly from its IP address - what happened was the registrar automatically reset DNS on expiry; again, a registrar issue and not really the fault of the XF company or any form of signal that the couldn't afford the domain renewal - that's just plain silly. Crap timing - yeah - but not any sort of sign about the finances of the XF company - just that their registrar let them down.

That's all. It happens.

Really? And just how many people know this?
Type xenforo.com and the page doesn't load. It's down as far as I'm concerned regardless if there is a workaround. That is not common knowledge.

Come on. It happened. Could happen to anyone, but not let's not make excuses.
I get emails that my domain is about to auto-renew. I check my expiration dates periodically.

 

[BGL]

The last official update for 1.2.0 was this one... January 10, 2012 While we have mentioned that 1.2 will include a mobile style

The comment implies there was a previous discussion on Mobile Style. Anyone know where that is to get an idea what XF's Mobile Style would do?

Six months and nothing on how the mobile style would work or asking for suggestions. Should forum admin's pay $800 to Tapatalk and further pay for customer Tapatalk features or will XenForo have what the competition, vB and IPB, have, mobile interface solutions? I guess this is an example of how the very strange lack of communication is a problem.

I think it's fair to say the Mobile Style is the main issue for 1.2 with forums likely to see 50% of their members using mobile access.

 

[Dynamic]

Mobile style is a priority in my eyes. I did a quick tally, and it seems that around 5% of my users ONLY use my site on their phones, and around 80% use the computer and their phones / tablets. Seems the world wants stuff readily available on their phones.

 

[Peggy]

The comment implies there was a previous discussion on Mobile Style. Anyone know where that is to get an idea what XF's Mobile Style would do?

Six months and nothing on how the mobile style would work or asking for suggestions. Should forum admin's pay $800 to Tapatalk and further pay for customer Tapatalk features or will XenForo have what the competition, vB and IPB, have, mobile interface solutions? I guess this is an example of how the very strange lack of communication is a problem.

I think it's fair to say the Mobile Style is the main issue for 1.2 with forums likely to see 50% of their members using mobile access.

You might want to remember that vB & IPB have been around for a lot of years, and have more than 2 coders to develop their products.
XF is barely a year old, and has 2 developers. You are not going to get, in XF, what you get in the other products, no matter how much you gripe about it.

 

[BGL]

You might want to remember that vB & IPB have been around for a lot of years, and have more than 2 coders to develop their products.
XF is barely a year old, and has 2 developers. You are not going to get, in XF, what you get in the other products, no matter how much you gripe about it.

Only too aware of it. With mobile access a big issue for forums, can XF compete?

We know six months ago a Mobile Style was near the top of the list for upgrades in 1.2 so the release of 1.2 with a mobile interface is a fast approaching milestone.

 

[jadmperry]

A few thoughts on communications, timelines for releases, and confidence.

First off, not that I have any real insight except as a 5 year owner of a forum site. So, I may be off on everything; these are just my impressions and thoughts on the subject.

It strikes me that the forum software business is a difficult one. To be frank, for me, I tend to think that all of the major software solutions are underpriced. That is with a caveat, though. I would be happy to pay maybe double without any reservations if it meant I got more- working modules (CMS, Gallery, Downloads for me would do it) being foremost. More development, more, more, more! But, I tend to think that the masses are looking for an inexpensive solution and I tend to think that the business model almost has to be a volume business. I am not sure that the market would support a doubling of costs off the shelf. So, it seems difficult for any of the solutions (I mean, XF, vB, IPB, for example) to really up their prices and deliver more (and, I suspect, based on comments I have read on vB, that the "real money" in forums is in advertising...I say this because of the well known fact that vB runs hundreds of site for profit and I think this is where they really make their money). Another difficulty is that any type of really high end forum software would be pretty expensive. It might be highly customized, have a lot of maintenance needed, be coded in some ways specifically for the server/hosting environment, need a lot of tweeks for the database and the forum would need a lot of attention to keep it doing fantastic things. And because of the customization, it would likely not work so well off the shelf- meaning that it would not likely be able to be used by the lower end mass market in the same way. Again, these are just my impressions, but I would suspect that such a high end solution would run in the many thousands...and once up would require a lot of resources from IT/Security/maintenance. I tend to think that this means that the sales volume for such a product would be low. (And many bigger companies would not care or need it...the Zynga game support forums run on vB and apparently without much customization done...seems pretty vanilla to me).

My point is that the business seems to be difficult one in the first place. With some limitations on the pricing, I tend to think that resources available to any company would be limited. And without a ton of resources, something has to give...and it seems to me that for a small company, the communications seems to be more likely to take a back seat to putting time and energy into coding and development. But, as far as confidence in XF, they have always delivered what they promised to me- the software does what it promises and is great for the price, if you ask me.

Six months and nothing on how the mobile style would work or asking for suggestions. Should forum admin's pay $800 to Tapatalk and further pay for customer Tapatalk features or will XenForo have what the competition, vB and IPB, have, mobile interface solutions? I guess this is an example of how the very strange lack of communication is a problem.

For me, I don't care much about mobile solution for XF. I use Safari on my iPhone and iPad to access my own XF forum and it does all I need. But, I do agree with the general point; I for one would like to know what the future holds for my other needs (I, personally, am in a bit of a bind with desperately needing a downloads solution....I think RM will meet my needs, but, I am not sure when it will be rolled out).

This is not meant to turn into a XF v. vB post (I don't have any experience with IPB, but probably the same principles apply). That said, I don't think you are getting anything better from vB in terms of communications. Some will say this is a dead horse, so stop beating it. But, I go back to vB4 and the whole pre-sale fiasco. I bought vB4 in the pre-sale on the promise of a fully integrated CMS and a great product. All I got was a buggy product that broke almost everything on my site and the CMS was hardly integrated, difficult to use and not at all what was promised. Though I migrated several months back to XF, I still check in on vB.com and for all intensive purposes, three years later, it seems the CMS is a dead product. I got up to vB 4.1.8 (I think), and saw nothing that was really up to par with what was promised. It seemed like it was always bug fixes (to be honest, though, most of the bugs did not impact me...the bigger problem for me was functionality problems and lack of any real new features in years...search improvement was promised for years with Zoltan supposedly working on it. That never happened). They have now mentioned vB5 Connect with something like 125 new features...but other than 3 screenshots, no other info and no release date).

Again, this is not meant to spin this thread offtopic. (I would be happy to take the specifics of the above points to another thread, but I only meant to use the above as illustrative of the "communications" experience). But, as a point of comparison, I don't know that you will find what I agree would be great (roadmap, updates on a schedule that are regular and in a short time span) anywhere. I suspect it is a problem of resources, but whatever the reason, it does not seem to happen anywhere.

Coming back to XF though, while the communication on the forums has dropped off from KAM, and it would be great to hear from them more, I am happy with the fact that they have always delivered what they promised, they have a great team here (Jake, Lawrence, Slavik) answering posts, and I have a great deal of confidence in XF's ability to deliver. This is a young company so there is not a lengthy track record to judge how fast they deliver upgrades over time, I am not put off by 6 months wait. Going back to the communications issue, I never got any real direct communications from Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, I bought both Apple and Microsoft products based on the fact I thought that they would work for my needs. XF fills the same bill for me.

You might want to remember that vB & IPB have been around for a lot of years, and have more than 2 coders to develop their products.
XF is barely a year old, and has 2 developers. You are not going to get, in XF, what you get in the other products, no matter how much you gripe about it.

I am not so sure, Peggy. I mean, I do think vB has a bigger staff, they have more folks posting in their forums. But, this seems to be window dressing to me. I check out their forums a few times a week and I don't really see anything of substance being put out in the way of communications. I don't see substantive updates. So, while the presence of staff may be reassuring, substantively, I don't see much from vB. And, as described above, 3 years or more out from the pre-sale, they have not delivered on hardly any of their promises (again, improved search?). I think XF beats them on rolling out upgrades (not counting minor maintenance/security patches).

I get your point, but I am not sure that there is any greater service offered by vB. (Like I said, don't know much about IPB).

Only too aware of it. With mobile access a big issue for forums, can XF compete?
We know six months ago a Mobile Style was near the top of the list for upgrades in 1.2 so the release of 1.2 with a mobile interface is a fast approaching milestone.

Hope it goes your way and you get a good solution that meets your needs in the near term.


If you have bothered to read this far, I will finish with a summation- I trust XF. They have always delivered and they have incredibly talented development team. I know that they have challenges based on this garbage lawsuit, but I know they love and believe in this product so I think they will weather the storm. No one knows for sure what the future holds. But, in a short time frame, I strongly suspect we will see some news and updates.

 

[vij]

Worst case - Even if vB wins and everything is taken over - I doubt Xenforo will die.

 

[whyweprotest]

I trust XF. They have always delivered and they have incredibly talented development team. I know that they have challenges based on this garbage lawsuit, but I know they love and believe in this product so I think they will weather the storm. No one knows for sure what the future holds. But, in a short time frame, I strongly suspect we will see some news and updates.

Isn't that the crux of it all, I would love to regain trust in XF, and KAM's ability to deliver, as would I like to once again see them more openly care about the project. Few know what is going on, even less know what the future holds, and whether an update or announcement is going to be made.

It's incredibly difficult to care about something when you don't see those who ought care most do the same.

 

[steven s]

It strikes me that the forum software business is a difficult one. To be frank, for me, I tend to think that all of the major software solutions are underpriced. <snip>

Price point is a difficult one. I think vB is priced right and XF is priced right at this stage of development.
I think the key thing for any company is cash flow.
Price it right [for me] and I'm more likely to buy more licenses and try to develop different sites.
Priced high, even if feature rich and I may only get 1 license.
Add features and you get people whining about bloat. You just can't win.

Yet you find multiple threads people complaining it's too much or they want it for free.

The more people who run a particular forum package, the better exposure for that company.
I didn't research various packages. I saw all the forums I was on were all using vB.
It was a logical choice to go in that direction.

Priced for volume makes sense especially when you have people holding multiple licenses.
One person with 6 licenses doesn't use the same support resources as 6 individual license holder.
Perhaps companies need to look at better multiple license fee structure?

Worst case - Even if vB wins and everything is taken over - I doubt Xenforo will die.

It won't.
XenForo will be around with right circumstances.

Isn't that the crux of it all, I would love to regain trust in XF, and KAM's ability to deliver, as would I like to once again see them more openly care about the project. Few know what is going on, even less know what the future holds, and whether an update or announcement is going to be made.

It's incredibly difficult to care about something when you don't see those who ought care most do the same.

You can't assume that they don't care.
I will reiterate, they probably can't post per their legal advice.
How long can Kier go without schmushing a muffin?

 

[BGL]

That said, I don't think you are getting anything better from vB in terms of communications.

I see vB and IPB support, sales and development people all over their websites and other websites (Admin Zone) answering questions, talking about development and direction of the software. It's almost in the DNA of forum discussion software developers and users to use forum software for communication with customers. That was apparently true with XenForo developers while at vB and at XenForo initially. In fact, that communication with customers is a large part of XenForo's initial commercial success.

So the lack of communication stands out for two reasons, it is unusual in the forum software business, it is unusual for the principals involved.

It also stands out for a third reason, its bad for business. And from every point of view, customer loyalty, customer service, product development and sales.

Why did the principals suddenly stop doing what is so much in their best interest to do?

 

[BGL]

Worst case - Even if vB wins and everything is taken over - I doubt Xenforo will die.

True and in many ways that is the situation right now. The developers have disappeared, the users are supporting each other building add ons. What we see is liable to be all we'll get. Current users and those considering buying it have to look at that as the possible bottom line. If XenForo stops now there are other consequences. People writing third party access and advertising programs like Tapatalk and Intext will not support the product. The other forum software makers will not build importers. The add on developers will move on the next shiny object.

Right now, XenForo has the feel of an orphan product. Where are the parents!?

 

[iTuN3r]

Back to zero lol ! Let's make it to page 50 we won't get the update we want .

 

[BGL]

Back to zero lol ! Let's make it to page 50 we won't get the update we want .

But will we get the one we need?

A tough "product development" goal there. At this rate, I don't think we'll make it to 50. 15 days to 23 pages.

 

[steven s]

Rhetorical question.
Does no one f'n get it?

Do people really think that KAM are being quiet because they don't care?
Really? Look at the passion they had in the beginning.
That doesn't go away overnight.