I’ll be seeing you around, vBulletin. It’s been real. It’s been fun. It has not, however, been real fun.
I opened my first discussion forum in August of 2004, running phpBB2 software. And while it worked, I was very aware the platform was not exactly secure. On 11 February 2005, I purchased my first vBulletin license from Jelsoft. I went from being more than a bit nervous to even look at the template system to the point of modifying templates to achieve the look I wanted. I modified templates to optimize the site for the search engines. I added scripts to provide more functionality for my members.
In 2006, I added a second vBulletin license. In 2007, I added a third. And earlier this year, I added a fourth. I always paid the annual license renewal fees to maintain download access to the latest version of the forum software, so we would provide the most features and the best security for all four sites.
I’ve not been 100% satisfied with the vBulletin package for the last couple of years, but I figured it was better the devil I know, rather than the one I don’t. So I stuck around, even though the software left far too much on the table.
In 2007, vBulletin was purchased by Internet Brands, a company that owns and operates over 100 forums of its own. Suddenly, the competitor was also the supplier of the software. (Can you see this coming?)
Earlier this year, Internet Brands announced they were going to release a new version of the software. This was going to be a complete and total rewrite of all the code, which was a huge undertaking. But IB announced they would release the software sometime during the second quarter of this year.
A few weeks back, the software was released to a very limited number of vBulletin admins for Alpha testing. An admin I helped on a couple of forums was one of the testers, so I got a very early look at what vBulletin’s future was going to be like. There was a carefully worded Non-Disclosure Agreement to prevent any of the Alpha teams from making any public statements about the software. Which is probably just as good, because I was raised to not say anything if I didn’t have anything good to say.
Internet Brands then decided it was also time to change its customer market focus and effectively priced the upgrades to the new package out of reach of most hobbyist forum admins. If a license expires, the license holder has no option but to pay over 4 times the original renewal fee to upgrade to the new package. Now remember, this is a package only a limited number of people had even seen.
People were griping about having to pay for something sight-unseen and rightfully so. And how were these customer concerns handled on the vBulletin sales forums? Some threads were locked, whilst others were deleted entirely. Customers were warned (!!!) that negative posts were going to be removed. Long-time customers with legitimate concerns were banned from the forums.
For months, Internet Brands has been pointing at some screenshots of a test site, telling everyone how wonderful the new package was going to look. Yet we weren’t seeing the same things in any of the Alpha releases. The visual changes were not improvements, in my not-so-humble opinion. I kept wondering how the new look was going to be received by others, because it looked like an epic fail to me.
But we didn’t have to wait for very long. A day after releasing Alpha 6 to the Alpha teams, someone at Internet Brands made the decision to update the company forums and to call the release Beta 1. The decision was another epic fail situation. The company forums were closed for the upgrade, which they officially claim took only five hours. However the forums were closed for something like 28 hours, because they needed to integrate the sales and technical scripts to the forums. Aye, Right.
When the forums re-opened, the CSS wasn’t loading, so the site was immediately was shut back down. When they got that problem fixed, it became clear that something around 1700 users were stalling their five servers. And when people saw the lousy appearance of the forums, the company line was the coder (who is no longer employed with them, by the way) had a faulty design that could not be used. Tsk, tsk, IB. Some of us know better. And the coder himself has admitted the style was not only completely functional, but was also 100% XHTML compliant.
Remember when I said I have been real happy about vBulletin for a couple of years? I had already made up my mind to not upgrade my sites to the new package. I figured i would just ride the old software as long as I could and then migrate to another script. After seeing the utter fiasco created by Internet Brands, I’ve modified that decision. I want out and I want out now. Internet Brands has made it clear they couldn’t organize a good piss-up in a brewery.
I’ve had some past discussion with some of the people at Invision Power Services, who offer a complete suite of integrated forum products. these people have gone out of their way to provide me with answers to my questions. Today, I mentioned on Twitter that I have decided to migrate my sites to Invision Power Board and I’ve heard from no less than four of their employees, offering to help me make the switch.
I’ve invested a lot of money in my sites. From vBulletin licenses, to blog licenses, to add-on scripts like GARS and vBSEO, I have spent more than I care to admit. And there is no counting the hours I’ve invested in learning how to make vBulletin work better, look better, run faster and be more secure. I hate to walk away from the tremendous investments in both time and dollars. But I’m not going to do business with a company that chooses to openly lie to its customers. That dog ain’t gonna hunt.
I’m sure life will go on as before at Internet Brands. They say a sucker is born every minute and with the exorbitant pricing of the new licenses, they’ll make up what they are going to lose on me in a New York minute. But I’m really pleased to see the staff at Invision be so eager to welcome a new customer. They make me want to do business with them. And that is exactly what i intend to do.
If anyone is interested, I will soon have four vBSEO licenses available. And vBSEO is playing fair, in that a license is a license. So if anyone is interested in these licenses, they will be able to upgrade to vBSEO 3.5, when the new vBulletin software finally becomes available.
So long, vBulletin. Invision Power Board, here I come!
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