What's your take on Infopop's Ubbthreads?

[wanders]

well then I take back what I said, apperently SOME big companies can spot quality

how very exciting for you guys.

[nuno]

yeah alsoWINAMP

[JamesUS]

The specific company I'm thinking of is a LOT bigger than WinAmp WA are owned by AOL anyway.

I think larger companies don't trust what they would see as 'cheap' software, and in the offline world that's the right attitude to take. But in the online world there are hundreds of bargains, you just have to spot them Big businesses are far too used to the offline world where very little worth having comes cheap...in time things will improve as vB becomes more popular and more noticed by people.

[tubedogg]

We could just make up a special 'corporate license' for $25,000 a year or something...That would help it along

[nuno]

and would that implicate even better and/or faster PHP code by any chance?

[wanders]

Well, again I am hardly an expert, but I think you guys are very wise to keep vbulletin affordable. You fulfill a niche and are building up great consumer loyalty. It may be more prestigious to cater to the big boys, but I think there's a lot to be said for the little guys too (Plus it looks like the big boys are starting to take notice too).

[George L]

Originally posted by JamesUS
The specific company I'm thinking of is a LOT bigger than WinAmp WA are owned by AOL anyway.

I think larger companies don't trust what they would see as 'cheap' software, and in the offline world that's the right attitude to take. But in the online world there are hundreds of bargains, you just have to spot them Big businesses are far too used to the offline world where very little worth having comes cheap...in time things will improve as vB becomes more popular and more noticed by people.

yeah... i can't see why a large company can spend 100k on something but not a few thousand dollars getting their own peope in on evaluating a much cheaper application

well actually i can... but that's not the point

[George L]

Originally posted by tubedogg
We could just make up a special 'corporate license' for $25,000 a year or something...That would help it along

yeah with oracle/postgresql/sybase/mysql back end support

[Skeptical]

Actually the best way to get the big wigs to sign isn't with the price tag. It's with the marketing. Approach a few big guys out there and have them sign over (give it free to them and offer them some sort of extra incentives). Once the other medium to large companies out there see them using vB they'll want to switch too.

[Mathiau]

Well, our company www.truepoker.com is not a HUGE company, but in the online poker world we are currently number 2, and numbers are rising, it was my choice on what forum to use, and i tested out both ubb and vb, and i like vb because of teh options already in the product, as well as teh MySQL database side of it, as it just seem 'more' secure to me, as opposed to basic cgi scripting.


Glad we got it, now time to perfect it!

currently testing.... got to add gfx all that fun stuff

http://tpdownload.dynip.com/tp/index.php

[ubbuser]

Well this is a thread about Ubbthreads, so I sidetracked a bit. However Infopop's OT seems to have gotten the big sites probably because Oracle is the backend. I must say having Oracle as a backend does have advantages for huge sites although I am no dbase expert or programmer.

Big companies and their purchasers like standard commercial stuff. That is what I have seen many times.

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by ubbuser
Well this is a thread about Ubbthreads, so I sidetracked a bit. However Infopop's OT seems to have gotten the big sites probably because Oracle is the backend. I must say having Oracle as a backend does have advantages for huge sites although I am no dbase expert or programmer.

Big companies and their purchasers like standard commercial stuff. That is what I have seen many times.

While Oracle might be a good portion of it, I think if you look closer you will see different reasons for why they chose OT...

Having worked in Corporate IT departments for many years you begin to find two ways of doing things.

First you have the corporation that has to have everything in house. They are looking for off-the-shelf software that can be tweaked to fill their needs. Most of this comes with lots of support. Some vertical market vendors will even sell you packages that include the servers so all you have to do is plug-it-in. They develop your custom features and make it work just like you want. The banking and insurance industries are examples of this line of thinking as a whole. They will pay large sums of money (tens of millions per year) to get what they want. Once these companies choose a vendor, it is impossible to get them to switch. They have to get a return on their investment first. Only two things will make them switch vendors, bankruptcy (of the vendor) or a merger. These companies will find a solution that works with their existing systems and don't care how much it costs. It is these corporations that vendors like Participate Systems seek out.

Second you will find corporations that will contract everything out. They are looking for solutions not software. These companies do not want to worry about servers, database backups and the other everyday problems associated with IT departments. They want their users to get out there and do the work and they want the systems available. They don't care if all the data is in one place or whether the systems are integrated. All they care about is that the data is there to begin with. The corporations that follow this route are fickle as they are constantly looking at the bottom line. If Vendor A offers the same product for a lower price than Vendor B, they get the contract. When Vendor B lowers their prices, they get the contract. These are the companies that would pick a solution provided by OpenTopic or ezBoard as they are basically plug and play. No Work, No Worries. On good bonus is that as these corporations mature and there is a fundamental change in policy (again due to the bottom line), they will grow and change into the same type of corporation as the first group.

Now when/if a Sybase/Oracle/SQL Server version of vBulletin is released, then we would be able to target emerging companies in the first group. This is a big market and these companies are used to paying large sums of money to get what they want. However, the second group will continue to be unreachable unless Jelsoft also offers a hosted version in the future.

[ubbuser]

Yes and it's a great sales point too for future customers who are large corporations.

The whole online subscription model / advert. model has failed, and companies are still figuring out what to do with their online strategy.

There have been so many large corporations who have shutdown or cutback on pretty good internet community sites like Timewarner (pathfinder), Disney (go.com, mrshowbiz.com), Excite. I really liked Mrshowbiz.com but I guess Disney must have lost a lot of money in that site.

Yet for newspapers, and similar sites these kind of community building software is a neat feature to have to retain audiences who would like to voice their opinions about current affairs.

I wonder if some of these large newspaper / MTV like sites build their own inhouse bulletin board type software solution? You go to washingtonpost.com and such large newspaper sites and they have some kind of community software going.

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by ubbuser
The whole online subscription model / advert. model has failed, and companies are still figuring out what to do with their online strategy.

For small and personally owned sites, yes it has. Gone is the time where the private webmaster can throw just anything on the Internet and hope to make money. However for small and medium-sized "Microdots", this isn't the case. These are the companies that are still profitable and able to make money using these models. Maybe not as much as before people came to their sense but surely enough to profit.

Before the "DotCom Doom" the prices of Internet Ads was astronomical. So out of leagues with any other form of advertising that when put on a CPM basis, the same 468 X 60 ad shown on a television program would have been worth about 2 Billion dollars for a 30 second slot in an average primetime slot. Now the ad prices charged by most companies is in line with Radio and Television advertising. Now if Internet Ads were truly obtrusive and "full screen" such as Television and Radio, you would be able to charge more because of the tracking, and other features that can be built in. However they aren't so you can't.

Today actually, the advertising market is increasing online. You have traditional advertising agencies moving into the field and bringing with them their exclusive clients like Ford, GM, Mazdah, Nike, Coca-Cola and more. Not just advertising their websites but building their brand awareness online. With the advent of Flash and DHTML, these ads are still not as obstrusive or "full screen" as television or radio but they are bringing in large fees. Fees in the 10s of thousands of dollars a day for a site like Yahoo.

Likewise the subscription model, has not failed. Heck it has only just gotten started. If you have the content that people want and you have it exclusively (or you make them think you do), they will pay for it. Again you can't just throw up your favorite hobby site and expect people to pay for it. You have to gain their trust and their loyalty before they will pay for it. The Wall Street Journal has this and they have a thriving subscription model going. It is an adjunct to their newspaper not a replacement. They are giving added value to their customers. And that is where the main point lies. If you want your customers/users to pay you must give them value in return. With products this value is inherent in the product itself. With content it is different. Think about why you buy magazine A over magazine B when they both cover the same topic. Or why you watch Television Show A when Television Show B offers the same concepts. What value do you get out of these products? What are you truly looking for? Once you know that then you can apply that to your site. Though you need to go further and find out why your visitors value your site over the competition. Find out what they need. Find a way to provide it. And finally find a way to get them to pay for this value in a reasonable and supportive way.

If you run a hobby site and expect to make money, then I am sorry when I say I don't think this is possible. If you run your site like a business and look at it like a business then, yes you can make money. You won't make money immediately, most businesses do not anyway. It will take time, work and energy to build it up right. The more you put into it, the more you will get out of it.

P.S. Sorry to take this so far off-topic

[ubbuser]

Well usually the one model subscription based that has worked is WSJ because they provide info that could make you money Another is FT.com, Economist.com, and Janes.com. The common feature in all these sites is quality content.

See the above is content of a different kind. What I am referring to is entertainment based content and content providers.

Of course content is king but then these very entertainment content providers have shut down their internet sites (disney, newscorp, Timewarner). Yahoo was a bit clever in that it created community sites with tight integration, and has generated enough traffic to make it worthwhile for content providers (nyt, abc etc.) to publish via their content aggregation based web sites.

The other end of the spectrum is the P-P model and that's where music sharing and stuff comes in. AOL is looking at tying in P-P sharing with their community web sites, something IMHO Jelsoft should lookat too

I agree it's a long process and I guess we'll have to wait and see how things roll out.