Yet another Blog

[mlucek]

It is just a bunch of addons and the only thing that is impressive, is his talent in creating such a product. To bad he did not have it as a stand alone option.

Looks quite nice except for the fixed width style. Yeah, looks like a buncha addons all packaged up nicely. Think you'd be better off just hacking that together yourself, unencoded, then can update code/hacks when the inevitable bugs show up and not have to rely on their releases.

[Itworx4me]

It has been posted by Princeton that they are the only one who can install the product. So for $145.00 you get a product and then have to allow them to access your site to install it. Which for me won't happen because I don't allow other people to install software on my server box. What a hugh security risk.

Itworx4me

[MJM]

It does provide a lot more than the current vBlog offers though, and this is the sort of thing that one would expect from a professional software provider with a team of developers working on it.

[Jose Amaral Rego]

Your kidding MJM right? you think that you will not see a flood of addons from vBulletin.org for vB Board Logger, cause that is the only difference I see with Mygtblog and what vB Board Logger... just addons.

Same if it was e.g. vBulletin Board script with no addons or vBulletin Board script bundle with addons... What is the difference, price for one if you get offical addons.

[MRGTB]

It has been posted by Princeton that they are the only one who can install the product. So for $145.00 you get a product and then have to allow them to access your site to install it.

That's a very strange decision to make, I mean it's not as though a person can't install Ioncube themselves if it's installed like vBSEO on the client side. And there's nothing he can do if Ioncube has to be added to the php.ini. Because he won't have access to it.

Strange one that, has he give any reason why for this?

[MJM]

Price is subjective (to change). I will not purchase any blog (if at all) before I see what vB comes up with.
What I'm saying is that if I were to expect to pay extra for a blog addon from vB I would expect the highest standards, so it is only natural to expect it to be fully featured, and fully integrated with the functions of the core software without having to seek addons from .org.
(or at least the minimum of addons)

This whole issue about blogs is nothing new.
If I was a coder which I'm not I would have had plenty of time to investigate the blogging systems out on the internet and think about how they could be applied to this forum software.

The fact is that though blogging and social networking systems came after forum software systems, the forum software in my opinion was the inventor of blogging and social networking.
Basically we have already been blogging away using this forum software, infact it wasn't so long ago when there was more discussion debating why there was so much bruhaha about blogging.

What turned the tide of this debate is that blogs provided greater individualism within a community, a better profile page, a place to post a personal diary, a better friends networking aspect.

In this respect I think many of us would have been happy to see this addon developed as an advanced user profile interface, which btw provided users with a better 'About Me' page, a better way to present Threads they have posted at the forum and also a place to create personal journal entries.

A challenge with the current 'separate blog addon' mentality that I foresee is the presentation or conflicts arising from "My blogs (threads)" at the forum" and 'My personal blogs' at my profile page.
Forums like mine which don't have a high volume of daily postings (but enough interesting and thoughtful content to satisfy our readers) would be at a great loss if our members diverted their forum postings to their personal blogs.

I am still hoping to see improvements in the way in which both forum and personal blogs are presented in a users profile page, the way admin can define a personal and community infrastructure for "blog entries", that provides an amicable marriage and prosperous relationship between an individuals needs and interests, and the interests of the community as a whole.

[MRGTB]

Well to be honest, I would have much sooner have seen the Blog here as a stand alone product. That was only tied into the forum by a LINK in the FOOTER (much the same way we have a Homepage Link option), that can be turned on and off - that lead to the Blog.

This way both would use there own permissions for starters, and would not be dependant on each other at all. But more important - both could be run as a seperate product (giving people the choice to use a vBlog without a need for the forum).

More could have been done in the future with the Blog then regarding adding more stuff to make it a better stand alone product - like social networking on a much more advanced scale without having to worry about bloating the forum database too much with all these added extras etc.

Off course both would use there own database, and not be tied into one forum database.

[MJM]

...I would have much sooner have seen the Blog here as a stand alone product ...

Aren't there already many Blogs already available that would provide you with what you want?
What do you see then with vBlog that would stand out as a preferrable stand alone?

[MRGTB]

Yeah there are many stand-alone Blogs out there, but I've yet to see one I like. I personally don't like Blogs like Wordpress etc. Plus a stand alone vBulletin Blog would be using the same template style as the vBulletin forum, you'd be instantly used to using it, because feature wise, thinks like setting up permission and just the settings in general would be vB user friendly which people like about vB. And changing the style would be the same as the forum. People could do things with it much easier to customise the look.

Remember we have more people using vBadvanced than Subdreamer. Why is that? Subdreamer is a better product, but still - more use vBadvanced! And Subdreamer can be tied into the vB Settings much the same way vBadvanced can.

Sometimes people just want to stay with one product, and not mix and match them with others. Like me for example. Also remember, we get good support here. So theres another reason to stay with a vBulletin stand alone Blog, even if it doesn't have a million and one features compared to Wordpress for example.

[MJM]

Ah yes, now I see what you mean.
I agree it's nice to be able to stick with a software that one has become familiar with.
The only reason I can think of why vB would not want to provide it as a stand alone is for technical support reasons, though as a stand alone it wouldn't be used/need to be integrated with other software products.

[MRGTB]

Not sure why you say for technical support reasons, as they are going to be doing that anyway for the Blog, even as a tied-in product. So there would be little difference really on the technical support side of things.

We already have a Blog project tools section setup to report Blog problems, that would work for stand alone or intergrated.

[MJM]

Till it's released we don't know what would be involved or of what components you do not want tied in /similar to the forum software.

My only understanding of another (non vB) product that I use with vB is that it offers a stand alone version and means not tied in to the vB (forum) user/login or vB usergroups etc. etc.
Your idea of what you think is a stand alone may be different.

[Itworx4me]

That's a very strange decision to make, I mean it's not as though a person can't install Ioncube themselves if it's installed like vBSEO on the client side. And there's nothing he can do if Ioncube has to be added to the php.ini. Because he won't have access to it.

Strange one that, has he give any reason why for this?

This isn't to install Ioncube. It is to install his Blog System on your site. You can't just buy the blog and you install it. It has to be installed by them.

[---MAD---]

Some patience please people. You cannot expect the most feature filled blog in its very first version. Think of vbulletin 1.x and 3.6 and see the difference. It will be similar for the blog.

As long as they have the necessary things to start the addon of, it should be ok. Other things like customizing the blog appearance for each user will, I am sure, come in next versions if they don't come up in the first one.

I do think they need to have the profile and blog intergrate better than having a simple link. I like the way that other blog (one being talked about in this thread) works, looks better how the links are at the top etc . Maybe that is already planned for this version as the SN side to the addon has not be put on vb.com yet.

[MRGTB]

This isn't to install Ioncube. It is to install his Blog System on your site. You can't just buy the blog and you install it. It has to be installed by them.

Yeah, I understood he meant he installs everything, not just Ioncube.

So why does he have to install it himself, has a reason been given. Seems the logical question to ask him if a person was interested in getting it. Does he even post a reason on his site why his will only sell it you if he has access to your server.