Matt

Matt posted a general idea -- it was not an announcement, blog entry, or anything that should have been construed as an official representation of IPS' permanent view.

From my perspective, if we were to do a cookie list/map - IPS then becomes liable for full compliance with the law. It would be quite easy for us to do a complete list of current cookies and how they are used. The moment a change is made, you install a modification that generates cookies, or similar - the list is inaccurate and we find ourselves in a position of having provided a false sense of security to our customer base.

Thus, we've decided to provide the user with a method of indicating their policies, but we are not incorporating any specific compliance directives into the software itself. Doing so starts us down the slippery slope of keeping track of all off-the-wall laws around the globe that ultimately, users are responsible for adhering to.

As a final point, nobody fully understands the law. That's why the deadline for compliance was extended a year. It's not even clear if the policy applies to Google, for which, as I understand it, the policy was written for to begin with.

As someone stated, nobody as the smallest idea of what are the exact reasons putting a page before another on google.
And I agree with that. Again, content is key, this is true as well.

On the other hand, one should not dismiss someone's experience with SEO, this is something that can be easily reverse engineered. Having communities online since as long as Matt is programming, I believe I start to have an opinion about how google classifies stuff in my "niche" markets.

imho, "on page" SEO is rather good with IPB, honnestly, I find it better than VB's.
XF's on page SEO is excellent, mostly superior to IPB because it DOES cut the crap. ( Or have less features, immv )

VB's is good at SEO for two reasons
1) it's VB ! It's obvious that someone at google DID write some code to process their template properly. Even old 3.6 forums are processed by google using breadcrumbs like if you were using metadata ! So googlebot has extra code for VB,  it's obvious.
2) the URLs are far superior, and VBSEO URLs are imho top notch. It is important to have a URL structure that can be browsed by users. for me the goal should be URLs like

wbesite.com/forum-name/thread-title.html , /thread-title-page2.html, etc.

What's wrong with VBSEO is that it created dead ends : people cannot "edit" VBSEO URLs and this leads to many 404 because people like your url structure, but also think they can temper with it. they SHOULD be able to, that would be ideal.

Of course, Matt has to deal with us, users, wanting 20 post per threads, some other 30, has to deal with posts beeing deleted, moved, etc; and I understand the reasoning behind the way IPB does page browsing

Again I'm just providing user input, I understand Matt's frustration with threads "IPB SEO sucks" and little advice on what to change.

Perhonorificus_merged, on 22 May 2012 - 12:54 PM, said:

They know. I made sure they know.

I like the way this is going. The ability to buy the suite and content or suite and blog is the best thing that I've heard in a while. I can buy suite plus blog and convert my blog from WP. Then in the future if I want to add a forum I can buy that and plug it in. I see nothing but positive from this and will only put IPB even further ahead of competitors.

Great job on the new structure. I fully support it. I think forum software was just a stepping stone for the company. And now with so much potential from the platform as a whole, it's much more reasonable to use the IPS Community Suite as the base platform, and then the forum software as an add-on along with the other apps since not everyone wants to drop money on forum software if they just want a CMS, or just a gallery, etc.

I think IPS will put themselves in a much better position to reach more customers this way, and it also simplifies renewals in the long run. Currently, everyone is on different renewal dates, but once everyone renews once after the changes take place, then renewals will be so much simpler because it will just be 1 payment every 6 months or so, instead of remembering there's a different renewal at random dates throughout the year.

The one thing I'm curious about, since IP.Board will be an add-on like the other applications now, that means that when you buy the IPS Community Suite license, it must come with some sort of new root/base platform to install the other add-ons on, right? In the past, apps like Content, Gallery, Blog, etc. had to be installed on an existing IP.Board installation, so this means that when you buy an IPS Community Suite license, you install a new platform which will serve as the base for which any/all of the IPS apps can get installed on, correct?

*feet up*

I have released our IPS Communities app GDK for iOS into the Marketplace:

Download

The GDK allows you to restyle the images that our app uses when people vist your communitiy. This allows you to customize the experience and make your community stand out.

It's a PSD that includes assets for Retina and Standard displays, and it's pre-sliced for you. Note that you should not change the slices in any way (size, name etc.) - the app expects them in the format we've set up in the GDK. Once you have saved the images (and there's instructions on the download on how to edit and save them), you can add them to your community via the Look & Feel -> Mobile App page.

Enjoy!

Yesterday morning I upgraded my 3.2.3 board to 3.3.2 with all the latest addons. Even though I waited for a couple of maintenance releases before upgrading to a new major version there were some issues and questions raised.

This resulted in 7 support tickets which in turn resulted in a couple of problems solved by IPS, three resulting bug reports in the Tracker and the rest I could solve myself after getting the solution from IPS and/or being pointed.in the right direction.

So what I am saying is that after less than 24 hours I have been able to get not only quick but also very precise support which has made my board the way I want it to be. Many thanks for the great support and also the great product upgrades. Looking forward to what's coming next

We are going in circles here now with handful of unhappy people repeating the same thing over and over. I understand we cannot please everyone and I welcome those of you that are unhappy to contact us but we must work for the greater good and the app is being well received by thousands already. So let's summarize it up for everyone else:

• We understand some people seem to think IPS is somehow profitting off your end users. We are not. I doubt I can change your mind on that but it's the truth.
  
• We are not going to add settings and such to disable the mobile app from working on your community. That would just be silly. You can certainly do that but it would just be wrong for us to do that.
  
• The mobile skin still exists and will continue to be developed for those that don't want to use the app.
  
• A white label version will come out as soon as the app is more stable and feature rich (and Android is out).
  
• It's only $1.99. It's not a requirement. It's something new not a change in anything. It's only $1.99.
  
• We tried free. Free didn't work so we must do a paid version. It's either paid or nothing at all.

For those of you who think this app is the end of the world as you know it I honestly offer you two paths to choose from:

• Give us some time to implement improvements and then revisit it later or:
  
• Simply remove the link to it from the mobile skin and forget it exists.

I really think that, given time to develop with our plans, many current doubters will choose option 1. IPS always works toward improvements and this will be no different

All I can ask right now is that those few people who are quite put out about the app just calm down, take a step back, and see how it develops. Who knows we might change our plans down the road. We might even create such a great app that you will change your plans too. But we're one week into this so who knows



Of course some people will now say how mean I am for locking this topic but I think we all agree everyone has made their points by page 13 .

I disagree.

The assertion  that

Quote

is baseless. The mobile app is a tool that allows end users to interact with several communities. It is additive in a feature-rich product suite. Just one more reason why IPS is better.

The idea that the mobile app is

Quote

is pure conjecture.  If a feature was hard-coded into the product suite or one of the products, and it required a greater amount of user interaction to use the IPS products, then yes, that would be intrusive.  But the mobile app is an optional app that some users might find useful for the way they interact with IPS communities.

The least positive customer experience is finding out that the mobile app that works on other communities does not work on this other community for the simple reason that it has been blocked.

Good grief, you guys keep pushing out quality stuff like this and you might just entice me away from XF and back to IPB...might.

Ok, thought that would be the case.

I think when the White Label app is released, IPS are going to have a lot of work on their hands! By the response of many users, I have seen at least 10 indicate they will be buying the white label app. So at a guess, at least 50 within the first few weeks. So, (for example purposes only) 50x1000=50000.  Bonus for all employees??

Don't give them ideas

I disagree.

The mobile App has diplomatic immunity, in a way:

From Matt:

Quote

Maybe for some, ip board users only use one board, but given the huge popularity of the ips software, this app gives the user the freedom to visit a multitude of communities.

My users can buy the mobile app if they choose, or they can use our/the default mobile skin. They have more choices, not less. They have more apps and ways to use and consume the ip board communities out there.

Alarm bells? Not in my book!

• User privacy on IP Board - safeguarded
  
• Gathering user information to sell to third parties - safeguarded
  
• Extraordinary FREE spam filters - peace of mind

Again - you will be able to buy the app on behalf of your users and give it to them for free if you'd like. If you're not wanting to absorb the cost of development, APN servers, support, etc. for your users, I'm not sure why you would expect us to, if I'm being honest. We provide a plethora of value-added services that we're quite proud and happy to offer for the cost of your renewal, including the hosted spam service. Unfortunately, we can only provide so much for $25. We don't hide the fact that we are ultimately a company and like any other company, we exist to be profitable, continue to grow and continue to offer quality products and services.

By and large, the feedback thus far has been positive. As always, we will continue to evaluate feedback and options and improve our offerings accordingly. It's unlikely we will invest tens of thousands of dollars in a mobile platform and be able to just "give it" away -- we tried the free app approach and it didn't work for us -- but we will do our best to improve the value of the app for you and your users.