Wildcat Media
Well-known member
Seems like you forgot Windows ME.
I think everyone did.
Anyone for Microsoft Bob?
vb5 beta released, and...
- Thread starter Apokalupsis
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Anyone for Microsoft Bob?
Saarbruecken
Active member
vB5 is a joke... thanks god I have sold all my vB licenses (had 5 of them) last year... now let's hope XenForo development will continue next year.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
TheLaw
Well-known member
The entire vB5 code and support forum comments should be entered as exhibits in the lawsuit along with a motion to dismiss. Dozens of programmers along with a few extra years built something that is embarrassingly distant from Xenforo's first release years ago, which supposedly stole vBulletin's technology. Fabian Schonholz is probably the happiest guy right now.
craigiri
Well-known member
You see what I corrected?
I still say that IB bought out Jelsoft to have their own in-house development team, in order to inject more monetization options into the core of vB. This enhances their site "properties" that they own. As long as they satisfy the needs of their many discussion boards, whatever they make on vB licensing is gravy.
Interesting theory - but I think they will be proven wrong in their calcs about the future value of many of the web properties they purchased.
As a wise man told me about IB and their ILK (this guy WAS really involved in inventing the modern net):
"We must constantly resist the total commercialization of the Web - there needs to be room for sharing with no money changing hands. If that becomes outlawed, the Web will decline.
Whoever names their company Internet Brands is on a mission to, well, brand the entire Internet by seizing what they see to be public lands. The Natives don't appreciate that."
If you compare the sites they have taken over - example: Steves Digicams - to those run by folks who are more like "the natives" - example: Dpreview - I think you will agree that the bulk commercialization of forums is not going to work in the long run. As I have said before, I think things look very different from Southern Cal then they do elsewhere.... (a cultural thing, perhaps!).
Saarbruecken
Active member
The prices are a joke as well, and again those who have invested the most into vBulletin have to pay the highest fees. 49$ saved when upgrading before 30th September plus additional costs if you need ticket support after 30 days. Ja nee, ist klar...
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
My only point there is that they now control the software they use on their web properties. The sole purpose to run all those sites is to generate money, and what better way to inject monetization (both visible and hidden) than to have your own team create exactly what you need.
Agreed--a lot of their properties may fail over time as interests on the Web ebb and flow. Heck, there was one Acura forum I nearly posted on, until I discovered it was one of theirs. I bailed.
I will say I don't mind some form of monetization or advertising to help keep a site afloat--it takes money. But to go on a grab of so many sites for the sole purpose of making money just seems so empty. I run several sites myself, and whatever little I make through monetization helps 1) pay the server bills and 2) compensates me for my time taken away from other paying work (after several years of not collecting anything for my countless hours). Plus, if I build my own community, or assist/volunteer at a community as a moderator or admin, I am also a part of that community and either build it out myself or care about its outcome. I have a personal interest. For me to pull an IB and just start acquiring possible future profits via sites and forums is totally out of character for me.
They took over Steve's Digicams?? Aw man...
They be smokin' some funny sh!t down there.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
Adding up our discounts, we would get the full $100 off. But no...we're not biting. I posted a link to both vB's own beta and Shamil's site, and one of my staffers already didn't like it.
A shame. They really could have pulled a rabbit out of the hat and come back with a clean, lean forum system to put themselves on top of the heap. Their own mission statement reads that site owners today want a platform to build a site around, not necessarily a forum. Well, hate to break the bad news, but I have built some really nice sites myself using only WordPress as a base, and adding a good theme or framework, and the appropriate plugins, to build something clients have exactly been looking for. The vB4 system (CMS, Blog, etc.) for building a site never appealed to us--the tools were too limited to be of any use to us. With WordPress (and I know Drupal and others are similar), there is often a readily available plugin to add the functionality we need. It just feels more "open" than the locked-in architecture of vB.
It's almost like vB tried to reinvent the wheel, but being designed by committee, it came out rectangular...
Jake Bunce
Well-known member
I recently made a post about this. I think that "whole site" solutions are a mistake (if I may be so bold):
In short, when you turn a forum application into a "whole site" solution you end up with a plate full of garnish which is inedible. What you should be focusing on is the meat and potatoes. And if your customers demand garnish then you should ignore them. Serve them meat and potatoes and they will be healthier for it.
erich37
Well-known member
TheLaw
Well-known member
You hit the nail on the head with this. I was shocked to find out that they actually did what I dreaded they would do - force URL changes in VB 5. By trying to go for the original vision of "the most powerful community software in the universe" they ended up disregarding the fact that 99.9% of their customer sites were strictly forums. The only reason I even considered moving to VB 4 was because the URLs wouldn't change so I wouldn't need 301 redirects and possibly take a ranking hit. At this point, moving to any software from VB 3 or VB 4 to VB 5 is no easier than moving to XenForo, IPB or another software that is far more mature than VB 5. Your vBulletin plugins and templates are all gone too and none can be adequately created because they are so far away from having a stable core. So I'd say you are way ahead of the game by moving from VB3/4 to Xenforo than you are to Vb 5.
I honestly didn't think that after they seemed to abandon development on VB 4 for such a long time that VB 5 would look this poor. And I certainly didn't think they would have the cojones to try to sell it when it barely looks like a beta. One can only wonder whether they are getting heat for having expended far too much money on the vBulletin product (and lawsuit) resulting in vBulletin Solutions Inc. operating deeply in the red. It took years for IB to fix vBulletin 4 until it was actually usable. I'd say that vBulletin 5 is even less mature than vB 4 was when it was released and that was a record setting low. My only disappointment is that I didn't sell all of my vB 4 licenses when I had the chance. I was taken by surprise that they launched this thing.
Digital Doctor
Well-known member
You Think that is bad .... IB didn't migrate ONE site (of hundreds) to vB4. And by the looks of it they won't be able to migrate to vB5 !Funny that a good chunk of clients advertised on the main vBulletin site are still on 3.x
Sador
Well-known member
You missed the vB4 pre-sale days, huh? Because it's exactly the same, but now with a viewable beta.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
I agree completely.
XenForo does a forum, and they do it well. I know others may want blogs, CMS, galleries, etc., but I already have solutions for those. I'm sure the XF crew could put together some really nice software for all of those, but then that takes away the efforts toward working on the core product: discussion board software.I read a book 25 years ago that dealt with the concept of "positioning". Here is a perfect example. Xerox became known as the company that made copying machines, so much that everyone began using their company name as the generic term for copying: "Go Xerox that page for me, will you?" When Xerox expanded into personal computers, they were outside their area of expertise...and their computer products failed miserably in the marketplace. If vB had stuck to developing their core product, vB5 could have been unbeatable. Heck, XF may never have happened if Jelsoft were still around with all the developers still in place.
Or to put another spin on it--if I were asked to setup some sort of site built around a blog or CMS system, I'd be looking at WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or many others. vB would never even enter my mind--they have been associated with forum software going on a decade now, and that image is still with them. Someone buying vB5 now may be sorely disappointed if they were looking for the old reliable vB3.5 they used to run several years ago.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
Beta? Based on what I saw, I'd have called it "alpha." It may be good when it finally leaves beta/RC status, but I'm not liking what I'm seeing. We've been with vB since 3.0, and I think I came on board as admin just before I upped us to 3.5.
Can't say I'm angry. Disappointed though? Definitely. I expected better.
dutchbb
Well-known member
To me that is the perfect evidence that it is 100% about the money and 0% about the product or user experience. What a shameful company.
Andem
Member
Perhaps I should hand you the "Digg" shovel? Ugh, nevermind, that was "buried" along with "Digg".
Well I was able to handle 30,000 concurrent users on a server designed for 2,000 users when a thread someone posted was featured on Reddit. That was at a load average of around 2.50. It only became overloaded because the sessions table was full. Once I increased max_heap_table_size, it was able to handle 90,000 over a 1 hour period.
That's all on 3.x.
Internet Brands has a lot of money. If they can't afford more than 1 quad-core server with 16GB of DDR3, then god help us all.
Paul M
Well-known member
That there have been 9 previous beta builds ?
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