vBulletin 3 Gamma

[MarkB]

Released Thursday night (GMT) - primarily a style update (skin update for those who prefer that terminology:p).

It's impressive! There's been a bit of a buzz about that it's similar to IPB, but I don't use that system enough to know - all I know is that useability has improved, and it's become clearer exactly what the developers had in mind.

Also, the language system is now operational, and templates should no longer contain any hard-coded english - which makes it easier for people to translate their system. Nice!

The thing I love though is the conditional template system. Getting to the point now where minor hacks no longer require file edits.

[incka]

I wonder if the company that makes these boards is in profit...

[Mike]

All of the big message boards on the net use vBulletin, so they should be making loads really.

[lo0ol]

Just because they have revenue doesn't mean that they necessarily have profit.

[Mike]

They wouldn't be carrying on if they didn't have a profit lo0ol.

[bugsy]

I'd bet my money that they do indeed make a profit. Some of the licenses can be costly -- which means excellent profit margins. The script is already built -- it's not like selling a physical product, so the costs should be less. I guess the costs just involve the programming labor and marketing mostly.

[lo0ol]

I would also assume that they make a profit. Though you never know, they might be in a lavish dot-com office with 50 Segways running about.

[incka]

Mmm... Segways...

[MarkB]

They are, indeed, profitable. They have a core programming team of just 4 or 5 people (with some other support/sales people). They only run a few servers, and their advertising consists largely of word-of-mouth and PR stuff.

And they deserve it, IMO.

[Chris]

VB can be expensive. When I first started out doing this stuff I couldn't justify the cost.

Now though, I don't care. I recently canned a phpbb installation and made it vb. $160 isn't that much anymore.

[LiveTronix]

$160 is fair for what is offers. As a person who has developed products, a heck of a lot of code went into vBulletin.

The smart thing they do is, put that link at the bottom every board. Every sold copy becomes advertising for them. From my understanding they have no big office, there programmers seem to be Remotely located.

[Yoda]

There's no plausible doubt in my mind that Jelsoft is making plenty on vBulletin. They clearly have quite a few customers, and make money on upgrades and installations, as well.

If nothing else, they've shown themselves to be highly professional and on top of things, and I'm 95% sure that a number of the staffers have yet to meet, so I think we can rule out the dot-bomb business model.

They're a smart, lean company, from what I can tell as an outsider. And yes, their price, though clearly high (especially given the free alternatives) is nevertheless justified. The admin capabilities, primarily, set it vastly apart from its freebie competitors.

[Mike]

I'm not that sure how it differs from some of the free ones though, like IPB. The features seem real similar.

[Yoda]

Originally posted by Mike
I'm not that sure how it differs from some of the free ones though, like IPB. The features seem real similar.
"The admin capabilities, primarily, set it vastly apart from its freebie competitors."

:)

The admin center is, simply put, massive. It can do damn near every thing you could possibly, as an admin, want to do. I upgraded many months ago, and have probably used less than a third of the features available to me.

Naturally, It's quite easy to duplicate vB's basic features, but good luck matching it for nuance. There are legions of little options and toggles, both on the admin and user sides, which, while not positively crucial, I would certainly miss if I had to go without them. Toss in the fact that its WYSIWYG editor puts every other I've seen to shame, and you've got a vastly superior product.

[Mike]

Just seen the admin demo on their site -- I agree with you:)

[s2kinteg916]

i still like 2.33 more... 3 looks awesome though

[MarkB]

The 2.* series is solid IMO - vB3 offers a lot more that can push your site monetarily; subscribable (is that a word?;)) usergroups (I have 100+ premium members @ $15 a pop) and more.