Some tough questions for the XF Team

[Reeve of Shinra]

Hey guys, first off congratulations once again on your latest endeavor. It looks great for an alpha and its creating quite a buzz.

Underneath the buzz of it all, a few people expressed some concerns and as I'm somewhat curious about the response myself I thought I would take the liberty of asking.

A lot of core team members that worked on vbulletin in the past appear to be involved with xenForo now. Obviously that is a strength given the fact you work well together and have tremendous experience in this area but Jelsoft way prior to the IB days was not a perfect company. How do you see yourselves avoiding the mistakes they made?

More to the point, and not to sound rude but sometimes candid works best:

1. What can Kier do now that he couldn't do when he was product manager of vbulletin?

2. Jelsoft always had issues communicating with their customers about upcoming changes (even prior to IB getting involved) and at times it was like pulling teeth to get yes and no types of answers. On the flip side, I think IPB has done an outstanding job of keeping their customers in the loop with their developments without necessarily giving away crucial info to competitors.What are your thoughts about this (if any) and where does XF plan to be in this scale of things?

3. I'm going to beat an old horse... the CMS ... vb customers have wanted one for over 10 years and half ***ed or not, they only got on last year.

I'm sure there are NDA's in place and you probably can't speak towards the specifics of why it took 10 years to accomplish. I'm equally sure that there are probably technological reasons for the delay. It even sounds like XF is being built with this kind of expansion in mind. My question is -- under your guidance, how will we avoid a situation where we are left hanging 10 years for a highly demanded product that never materializes? Will the communication be clear enough that if someone asks for product z tomorrow, you could say 'yes its in the works for later this year' or 'no, we don't plan on doing it this year'.

Thank you,

- John

 

[Harry]

A small portal fine but i see no need for a full CMS/Blogs.. If so i would hope they are done and sold separately.

Not sure where people get this idea that they are needed for a site to survive? I know a number of very large sites that don't use either.

 

[anotheralias]

Could someone (who's really bored and has nothing better to do) please explain to me why it's so important to have an integrated CMS? To me it's like needing a walk-in closet integrated into the kitchen. They serve two different purposes - why do they need to be lashed together? What's the big problem with having a link on your content called "forum," and they click on it and voila - there's the forum. I don't get it. What am I missing?

(Oh, just realized there's no spellcheck - I depend on that to put the accent marks in for me. Ha.)

(P.S. LOVE the "there are more posts would you like to view them" thingy!)

 

[Kier]

This was indeed all prior to Internet Brands takeover, unfortunately.

The Internet Brands era began quite some time before the acquisition was announced, as James positioned the company for the buy-out. vBulletin 3.6 was the last release where the feature set was entirely developer-driven.

 

[Jason]

A full mature system like WP will take many years to build... and in that time WP will be years ahead. I think there is many priorities besides a CMS. Money? Just make a really good bridge and sell it. I surelly would pay $50 for a supported bridge xF + wordpress

I see this argument a lot, but I simply can't buy into it.

WordPress is where it is today through a lot of trial and error. We now have a pretty good idea of what people expect in such software, what works and what doesn't, which is half the battle. So, it should be relatively easy for someone to develop a similar product in half the time (or less).

Anyway, I'm glad they've decided to focus solely on the forum for the time being. Then again, I don't really need a CMS either (we use a CakePHP app we developed to fulfill that job), but even if I did my feelings towards the issue would probably remain unchanged.

 

[Dark_Hunter]

Not everything needs to be sexed up with a CMS.

 

[Marcus]

Focussing on the forum is by far the best. Most admins prefer a very good forum without a blog over an average forum with blog and cms. The pages here are good enough for most things. I need a start forum page that does not look so much like a forum, but where most forum elements (sign on, register, forum list) are visible.

 

[Reeve of Shinra]

Yes, suggestions forum at vb is a pet peeve of mine too. I don't care if the answer is the "no as in never" or "no as in we can't do something for some reason in the next six months for whatever reason" but it helps

 

[Dean]

The Internet Brands era began quite some time before the acquisition was announced, as James positioned the company for the buy-out. vBulletin 3.6 was the last release where the feature set was entirely developer-driven.

Thank you, this is what I long suspected. Positioning does occur when selling a company.

 

[Dragapult]

Not everything needs to be sexed up with a CMS.

Not to mention a CMS isn't really necessary for most smaller sites, too.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

If the core product is done right, then there should be no reason a cms, blog, gallery, etc etc etc can't all be plugged in individually as products. The problem that many miss about bridges is that a bridge typically only aligns user details, not usergroups, permissions, features and theme, let alone any type of full integration to push data between areas. Addons that are then needed should be developed uniquely for each product as a further plugin, just like Joomla and WP are now. Even WP are developing forums and other key products, because the market is demanding a full suite product. If the market didn't stipulate these basic key elements, IPB and VB would have never bothered with them, let alone WP getting into forums.

As mentioned, 90% of CMS features are bloat and rarely used. There are basics that are needed, the rest should be left to the third party developers to write a plugin. A core that uses products equals a win win for all possible buyers, as the forum only buyer has the best available at a forum only price, the forum with cms owner can obtain both, fully matched and integrated losing nothing via bridges or such. Whilst I understand some saying a forum only, and do that well... you then immediately as a company limit your potential buyers. That just isn't good business.

There are already 30+ other developers out their making a forum only product, and as a company you are now directly competing against them all. Lets face facts, if you really want the dominant market share, which is the $$$, then you want to compete with the two biggest players, being VB and IPB, as you will never compete with PHPBB being a free forum only product when charging a fee. IMHO, xenforo's market share is VB's and IPB's... so they have to do it all better than them both to get their users and deflate their market shares uniquely. There is already a large market of users who's comments reflect they could simply not shift without comparable products on offer from their VB suite or IPB combination.

The only way to realistically shift market share (obtain the greatest wealth and product success) is to directly compete against the big players at the same level, except to do it better. The product is already superior at forum level only to both VB and IPB in alpha state, so if xenforo directly matched IPB & VB for products, but did it far better in all areas, then they will naturally become the largest forum stakeholder that others will then strive to be.

A forum only product, looking at the existing competition doing it, just doesn't make sense to me personally as anything that will go far beyond the initial hype and select group of loyal purchasers to Mike and Kier. I would actually envisage a gallery being the easiest to construct, as the imaging and video code is already present to manage image upload / video integration and viewing, its merely a matter of writing the specific aspect to organise user, group & community type albums and such.

Quite honestly, looking at this product right now, it surpasses everything else on the market for intuitiveness and no doubt functionality once to gold standard. What would really need to be continually added after the gold release? If it integrates openID and major social networking platforms, quite honestly I see no real time requirement in the forum product itself required, as it is that good / becoming that good. Why not then develop beyond the major players to surpass even their products? My understanding as a competing business would be to get the main players business, and that is only going to occur by matching / bettering what is already offered, and then smashing it via performance, quality, security, etc.

Obviously everything starts somewhere, as does this product, but I don't envisage this product having the success of VB or IPB without expansion into all the major product sectors, being: cms, blog, photo & video gallery, chat, downloads and others.

Just my two cents.

 

[Ahmed]

Great post Anthony.
I agree with all what you said.

 

[anotheralias]

Wasn't vBulletin pretty successful before it had all that stuff?

 

[Ahmed]

Wasn't vBulletin pretty successful before it had all that stuff?

All that stuff aren't the reason why vB is as it is now.

 

[GodForum.com]

Obviously everything starts somewhere, as does this product, but I don't envisage this product having
the success of VB or IPB without expansion into all the major product sectors, being: cms, blog, photo & video gallery, chat, downloads and others.
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I for one love whats in IP.Nexus ... referral system, shop functionality, credits etc etc etc ...

We must keep in mind that users are now more demanding than pre Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), Twitter (2006) days ...

so you need the best features of each to have a better chance at building something of value.

 

[jonsidneyb]

The only reason I want a CMS is that I make my living off of my forum. It is a place to display my products.

 

[DoctorWatsOn]

Great post Anthony.
I agree with all what you said.

Ditto.

 

[Grover]

There is already a large market of users who's comments reflect they could simply not shift without comparable products on offer from their VB suite or IPB combination.

True for myself.

Obviously everything starts somewhere, as does this product, but I don't envisage this product having the success of VB or IPB without expansion into all the major product sectors, being: cms, blog, photo & video gallery, chat, downloads and others.

Just my two cents.

Completely agreed.

 

[anotheralias]

Well, I hope you're wrong, because I'd really love to see forums go back to being fun and lively and full of action. It's so depressing to find a forum for something I'm interested in, only to discover that - in spite of its 300 pages of assorted frills (articles, blogs, whatever) - only a handful of people bother to post on it.

I thought that was due to Facebook and Twitter, but now I wonder if it's just due to the clunky forum software.

 

[Dark_Hunter]

Well, I hope you're wrong, because I'd really love to see forums go back to being fun and lively and full of action. It's so depressing to find a forum for something I'm interested in, only to discover that - in spite of its 300 pages of assorted frills (articles, blogs, whatever) - only a handful of people bother to post on it.

I thought that was due to Facebook and Twitter, but now I wonder if it's just due to the clunky forum software.

Its not the software, but who is using it.

 

[anotheralias]

Its not the software, but who is using it.

I think it is the software in the sense of, whether people will use it.