Please tell me you will never... Do this....

[Adam Howard]

Skimlinks and VerticalResponse

So they've added adware and spam into the core product. Nice going Internet Brands.

1) Internet Brands decided to rely on a 3rd party product, rather then code something

2) Internet Brands decided we should be paying a 3rd party provider to use the product we already paid for from Internet Brands (vBulletin)

3) Security software does not like their 3rd party service provider (some individuals will get a warning or not even be able to access the 3rd party provider's site).

4) Use of their services (the 3rd party provider) has been blocked by some mail servers and by association, your community could also be blocked or classified as spam.

5) Some of the ads by Skimlinks have been flagged by security software, so using it can also get your site flagged

A job well done Internet Brands.

So I just want to know... That XenForo.... Would never do this to their customers?!

(The quote is from a post I made on vBulletin's Support Site)

 

[Floris]

We have had Skimlinks running on AVForums since March 2009. Alicia and her team have been very responsive to my requests for information and help, and their monthly payments have turned up bang on time.
Their online reporting tool is helpful, if a little slow to log in.
No complaints from here and they are a legit company.

I think no doubt lies with the SL side of things, tbh.

 

[SneakyDave]

So if you have a vBulletin forum but don't want to support internet brands, you can give the money to xenforo instead and still make money through the site on the vB powered board?

I think the jist is this, register for skimlinks on their site, and put xenforo in the "please tell us more" input type on registration, then xenforo will accrue the referral. Then you can use skimlinks in your vb powered forum and earn money, while giving xenforo a little bonus. And hopefully xenforo actually gets the referral, but I wouldn't think it would apply to the "after 6 months, get another 5%" promotion, I think that's just for vb.

 

[Alicia Navarro]

I think the jist is this, register for skimlinks on their site, and put xenforo in the "please tell us more" input type on registration, then xenforo will accrue the referral. Then you can use skimlinks in your vb powered forum and earn money, while giving xenforo a little bonus. And hopefully xenforo actually gets the referral, but I wouldn't think it would apply to the "after 6 months, get another 5%" promotion, I think that's just for vb.

For us to track referrals, you need to do more than just list Xenforo as 'Where you heard about Skimlinks', you have to click through the specific link, ie. www.skimlinks.com/xenforo
You can obviously choose to do whatever you like, and we clearly are fans of both vBulletin and Xenforo, but if you use a vBulletin forum, I would encourage you to act in good faith; and if you use Xenforo, then please do go ahead and attribute the referral to them.

 

[digitalpoint]

I have no issues with great 3rd party stuff being included as an option. Skimlinks is pretty decent (although I'm not going to use it)... but the mass mailing thing is just dumb. The integration is poor (it's more like you export data to them), and it's terribly expensive. I'll stick to my email distribution system I built myself, thanks.

 

[Kier]

For us to track referrals, you need to do more than just list Xenforo as 'Where you heard about Skimlinks', you have to click through the specific link, ie. www.skimlinks.com/xenforo
You can obviously choose to do whatever you like, and we clearly are fans of both vBulletin and Xenforo, but if you use a vBulletin forum, I would encourage you to act in good faith; and if you use Xenforo, then please do go ahead and attribute the referral to them.

I'd like to back that up - don't circumvent the system, if you sign up to Skimlinks via vBulletin or you use their integration, the credit and referral belongs to them.

I don't want to hear that anyone has used our referral link to get a Skimlinks Publisher ID that they then plugged into their vBulletin control panel, that goes against all conventions of fairness.

 

[whitetigergrowl]

I'm rather perplexed by this reaction. Ignore the fact that it's vBulletin for a moment and consider a more abstract case.

If Forum Product X is well maintained, feature rich and continues to develop at a good pace, and then it integrates a product such as Skimlinks, which allows customers to quickly and easily generate income from their forums, that's a bad thing?

I think there is a difference however.

Say for example Xenforo came to a monetary agreement with Company A to integrate a 3rd party application of theirs into Xenforo. One that does ad links even. The rub isn't that it was added or that it even cost Xenforo money to add it.

The rub is that Xenforo would then be using the thousands of forums under it's brand that do use it, to also gain money from them. Do those forums see a loss of money? Supposedly not. However Xenforo is then using the popularity of those forums that do use it, to prop themselves up financially as well since Xenforo seemingly is getting a percentage of money revenued through those forums using it. Remember, even if say a member quits renewing Xenforo, anytime those ads are used on a forum, they still get money from them.

This is simply a money grab and nothing else. Using many unsuspecting forums to garner cash for said forum creators.

It's not like this is just being added like Adsense and if used only benefits you. This also benefits the said company that has integrated this. Even if you never renew or buy licenses from them again. So long as you use it, you are also financially supporting them. Dirty and slimey IMO.

2. vBulletin does get rewarded for referring customers to us, but that comes out of our pocket, not yours.

Maybe so, but it validates much of what has been said. Looks like SlimLinks has stepped in to try and do damage control. But again, it's NOT just Slimlinks thats the issue with what they have done.

However this isn't the VB forums. As long as Xenforo doesn't go this rather slimy route, I'm cool with Xenforo.

 

[SneakyDave]

To Kier's point: What if a person is already a skimlinks member, by virtue of using the xF link or not. Does that mean you aren't playing "fair" if you plug your skimlinks affiliate id in your vB installation?

Should they create a new skimlinks account just so that vB can get their nut? F that

 

[ManagerJosh]

I'm rather perplexed by this reaction. Ignore the fact that it's vBulletin for a moment and consider a more abstract case.

If Forum Product X is well maintained, feature rich and continues to develop at a good pace, and then it integrates a product such as Skimlinks, which allows customers to quickly and easily generate income from their forums, that's a bad thing?

The keywords here is "well maintained". If a product is well maintained, I see, in general, no problems.

 

[Alicia Navarro]

I think there is a difference however.

Say for example Xenforo came to a monetary agreement with Company A to integrate a 3rd party application of theirs into Xenforo. One that does ad links even. The rub isn't that it was added or that it even cost Xenforo money to add it.

The rub is that Xenforo would then be using the thousands of forums under it's brand that do use it, to also gain money from them. Do those forums see a loss of money? Supposedly not. However Xenforo is then using the popularity of those forums that do use it, to prop themselves up financially as well since Xenforo seemingly is getting a percentage of money revenued through those forums using it. Remember, even if say a member quits renewing Xenforo, anytime those ads are used on a forum, they still get money from them.

This is simply a money grab and nothing else. Using many unsuspecting forums to garner cash for said forum creators.

It's not like this is just being added like Adsense and if used only benefits you. This also benefits the said company that has integrated this. Even if you never renew or buy licenses from them again. So long as you use it, you are also financially supporting them. Dirty and slimey IMO.



Maybe so, but it validates much of what has been said.

I totally respect your view, but surely it is up to me how I spend my marketing budget? If your earnings are not affected at all, and we are open and honest about the fact that I do reward referrers (as many software and advertising companies do) does it matter how I structure the relationship? I do understand that you may have an issue with this, but hope you can also see that this is the nature of affiliate marketing, which is a legitimate and common way for companies to generate revenues.

 

[grant sarver]

It really all comes down to communications. I love the communications and feeling of community we enjoy here. I have a VB forum, but I doubt I would use it for any future projects. VB could have headed off a lot of the negatives with better communication. I don't have a problem with the forum software provider making a spiff, especially if they use their clout to leverage a better deal for me. The Vertical Response "integration" seems to offer a worse deal than I can get by going direct. XF's road to riches can only be through pleasing admins. VB is a mature product with a large installed base. Their "monetizing" may be the best approach for them. They should still get us a better deal than we can get on our own AND communicate better.

 

[Kier]

To Kier's point: What if a person is already a skimlinks member, by virtue of using the xF link or not. Does that mean you aren't playing "fair" if you plug your skimlinks affiliate id in your vB installation?

No, plug in your existing Skimlinks account ID if you have one, just don't use someone else's referral link to take advantage of vBulletin's system.

 

[gfc]

Let's for a second compare this with "usual" Desktop Software. You have free and opensource ones, you have free ones, there are free ones with ads and there are paid ones. Sometimes you can even "upgrade" your desktop software buy donation or buying it to stop having ads or any kind of affiliate stuff in it.

But i've never seen that I have to pay for a software and still there are ads in it so that the developer get's some extra revenue stream. And that's exactly what we're seeing with all these solutions vb is incorporating into their code.

If I pay for software I am expecting that that's it. I would never accept paying 1000$ for Adobe Photoshop for still having ads in it. Or would you? Or I would not accept to buy a new BMW where there are ad stickers on it ("oh, you can opt-out by take them away..").

For me such partnerships between *paid* software and such service providers are fully legal and even understandable. But to be honest IMHO it's feels kinda sneaky and very unappealing for me.. just my personal feelings about this

 

[Paul M]

What's the general feedback by vbulletin customers regarding this? is it welcomed or met with scepticism?

The same old vocal few are [of course] up in arms again. The rest (me included) are not really bothered either way. Most will just ignore or disable it.

 

[James]

It's nice to see that the XF team are still standing by morals despite the pending litigation.

On another note, I've stopped affiliating with vBulletin because a better product came along. I never made the jump to vB4.

 

[Shelley]

The same old vocal few are [of course] up in arms again. The rest (me included) are not really bothered either way. Most will just ignore or disable it.

If it can be disabled then I don't see what all the fuss is. Judging by the comments in this thread the complaint is about bugs not being fixed whilst this was included which (judging by the remarks) is the grievance. Eitherway, doesn't affect me so I'm not fussed, Just more curious than anything.

 

[steven s]

The same old vocal few are [of course] up in arms again. The rest (me included) are not really bothered either way. Most will just ignore or disable it.

I'll update and ignore it. The complaining has gotten old here and there.

 

[Mark.B]

The same old vocal few are [of course] up in arms again. The rest (me included) are not really bothered either way. Most will just ignore or disable it.

Actually since Skimlinks put that post over on vBulletin the Q&A thread has got rather more positive and it looks like this might turn out to be quite a useful addition for at least some people.

There's only a handful of people complaining about it now.

The feature is of no interest to me but I don't object to it being there.

I think Kier's implied support for at least the concept of it may have turned a few heads, as I thought it would. It seems to have left some people caught like rabbits in the headlights. Not knowing which way to turn.

 

[steven s]

It seems to have left some people caught like rabbits in the headlights.

I think that's deer in the headlights.

 

[Kier]

I think that's deer in the headlights.

Where I come from it's a rabbit, but I think we all understand the metaphor

 

[Stuart Wright]

I think that's deer in the headlights.

Oh I dunno, I've splattered way many more rabbits than deer.