This entry is purely to link to a great point of view on the whole Internet Brands vs. xenForo debacle.
I hope you enjoy the read as much as I did.
Let’s Think – The Real Reason for Internet Brands v. xenForo from vBTruth.com
Tag: xenForo
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XenForo Installed!
So today I became a proud owner of XenForo, the newest forum platform. For those who have never purchased forum software before, I thought I would tell you how the process went.
It all began at 10:40 Eastern when I verified that I had the proper funds in my PayPal account. You would be very surprised how many people go to purchase something and fail to check their account to see if they have the proper funds in there.
After seeing that I was okay, I headed over to XenForo.com, clicked Buy, entered my contact infomation, and headed to the checkout page. I want to commend both XenForo and PayPal for making this process very smooth. There’s nothing like getting hung up in the payment process to ruin your spirits. Everything was perfect.
I logged into my new customer account and was ready to download the software. But before I could do that I had to enter my forum title and what the URL of the forum would be.
Once that was done I selected which version I wanted and clicked Download. Wow, almost instantly the zip file containing all of the forum goodies was on my computer. It was lightning fast. I unzipped the file using StuffIt.
I fired up SmartFTP and began uploading all of the files. I’ve used SmartFTP for years and have had very little problems with it. If you’ve never used it before I strongly recommend giving it a try. It took just four minutes to upload the files from my computer to my web host.
Chimpie, what web host do you use?
That’s a great question. For the past few years I’ve used HostGator for all of my hosting needs. HostGator is a very solid company, headquartered in Houston, Texas and recently expanded their workforce and opened another support center in Austin, Texas.
Now that the files were on my web host, I pointed by browser to the install script and began the installation process. Within the first step or two you are asked to enter your MySQL database name, username and password. If you have any problems setting up this information ask your web host. Since this is not my first installation I had the information ready to go.
Once that was entered in the installation process continued. This is where XenForo is head over heels better than vBulletin. With vBulletin (version 3) you have to keep clicking ‘next’ during each part of the process. Not here. The guys at XenForo have coded this very well. You click once and everything else is taken care of. This process took about 3 minutes.
At 11:01, just 21 minutes after clicking Buy on Xenforo’s homepage, I had my new forum online.
I’ll be spending my spare time over the next couple of weeks modifying the style to meet my needs, but you can monitor my progress by visiting www.chimpie.com/xenforo.
Overall I’m very pleased with how this entire process went. Thumbs up to the entire XenForo team!
About 24 hours ago, Internet Brands (IB), the owner of the popular forum software vBulletin, created a post on their company’s forum announcing that they are commencing a lawsuit against Xenforo, a new forum software company, and its founders. Internet Brands says,
The suit is simple: we claim that Kier, Mike, and Ashley have infringed and violated contracts they signed with us to gain unfair business advantage. As such, Xenforo’s software unfairly stands on the shoulders of more than a decade of development by Jelsoft. Internet Brands owns this intellectual property.
What are you really afraid of IB? Are you afraid of the success of the Kier, Mike and Ashley? Are you afraid that they will build a product superior to yours?
Are you afraid that you will lose customers to Xenforo? Well, you should be. This action is childish. You’re running to tell on them, saying that they aren’t playing nice. Yes, I know. That’s what we have courts for. So you do have the right to do so.
But what’s going to be the fallout of this? You are already being seen as the ‘big bad bully’, attempting to keep the new guy from playing with your friends (customers). Are you that scared of the competition?
It wasn’t more than a few years ago that vBulletin was known as the company to go to if you want a solid performing forum. Heck, I even bought four licenses from them. This site (chimpie.com) used to run on vBulletin. But about two years ago everything went down hill. Updates were few and far between and customer service, well, that went right out the window. Getting a root canal was less painful that dealing with their customer service department.
Of all that was said in IB’s post, this part blew me away:
Kier’s and Mike’s work as Jelsoft employees was the exclusive property of their employer, and the former owners of Jelsoft not only paid Kier and Mike well during their employment, Kier was paid a handsome bonus when Internet Brands bought the business, although no such payment was required.
Really? You’re bringing up money? Are you saying that because you were so generous that Kier and the gang should have rolled over and died? C’mon now.
Matt Mecham, a lead developer for IP.B said it best, via a tweet,
IB suing XenForo – … this is exactly how to alienate the shattered remains of your customer base. What farce.
You said it Matt. And others agree with you. In fact, in the past 24 hours several hundred people have joined Xenforo’s community, testing out its features and functionality. You can read through their forums to see their comments for yourself.
We consider Kier and Mike to be talented developers, but ones who potentially fail to grasp the implications of their actions.
No, Internet Brands. You failed to grasp the implications of your actions. You have given Xenforo free advertising. You have shown your true colors. You have driven your die hard supports away. Including this one.
Over the past two weeks I have given Xenforo a pretty through test from an end user’s point of view. There is one word that I keep saying over and over about my experiences with it… Smooth. This has to be the smoothest running forum software I’ve ever used. No hiccups. No hangs. Just read, type, submit and then I’m moving on to the next topic.
If anyone is in the market for a solid performing forum software, I strongly recommend that you give Xenforo a try.