The Players

For those of you who are new to the vBulletin fiasco, here’s a short summary. In July 2007, the company that developed vBulletin (Jelsoft) was sold to Internet Brands, a scavenger and operator of community websites (yes, this means they are both developer and in competition with its customers.) After years of paying $30 to receive all the updates to my vBulletin 3 software, Internet Brands raised the price of the software and the annual maintenance fees for product updates to $40 in 2008. The following year in 2009,Internet Brands suddenly ceased offering customers the ability to purchase the annual updates to their vBulletin 3 software so it could pre-sell vBulletin 4 licenses instead for $130-210. In 2010, vBulletin Solutions plans to sell the same “maintenance pack” for $50 that I should have been able to buy for $40 last year and $30 the year earlier.

The Shut Out

I’m sure you’re thinking right now you’ve misread. One day the company simply stopped offering a customer who owned, e.g. version 3.6.2 the ability to download later versions of the product? Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Your choice was to either pay $130 or more during the October 2009 “presale” to buy vBulletin 4 (not out for months) and receive all vBulletin 3 updates or sit tight with your current version and watch forever from the sidelines. Why was this done? The only reason I can surmise is that Internet Brands wanted to make big numbers that quarter. vBulletin 3 owners would likely have opted to renew their right to receive vBulletin 3 product updates and pass on the vBulletin 4 upgrade, waiting to see what the raw product might become later. Ironically, right after the presale was pumped in press releases which reported “record sales”, the GM and chief presale promoter left the company to retire to build his dream house in Central America. You’re probably thinking what I’m thinking.

We spent the $130 to receive the updates to The Law Forums as well as a few other licenses but not the rest, hedging our losses. Despite our upgrading to vBulletin 4, it’s almost 10 months later since the dreaded pre-sale and many forums, including our own, have not been upgraded. We’ve refrained from doing so due to the reports of numerous bugs, interface and performance issues.

Unfortunately the price for a vBulletin 3 to vBulletin 4 upgrade is so high, it makes our vBulletin 3 licenses worthless as an upgrade option – even if vBulletin 4 is ever worth using. Quandary – Internet Brands will not be able to shake cash from vBulletin 3 license holders. How can they shake money from the tree?

The Tale

While numerous customers are irate that they haven’t heard much of anything concerned the next update to their vBulletin 4.0.4 software, Internet Brands was glad to announce the “Annual Maintenance Crap Pack” this past week. For the bargain price of $50, Internet Brands will sell all vBulletin customers who didn’t upgrade to vBulletin 4, all of the maintenance releases. In fact, they are giving certain customers a $20 discount as a way of appreciating their “valued support.”

So let me get this straight – the yearly product updates that I bought for $30 in 2007, which Internet Brands raised to $40 in 2008, and refused to sell me in 2009… is being offered to customers for $50 in 2010?  Now here is the kicker – if you bought a vBulletin 3 license for $180 in late August or September 2009, you found out that you had to pay $130 more to upgrade to vBulletin 4 just one month later! I don’t recall “courtesy upgrades” being given to those purchasers. Now since those last few purchasers of vBulletin 3 will no longer being able to download the updates to their software one year later, rather than giving just them these dozen product fixes gratis to “valued” customers, Internet Brands is charging them only $30! I apologize – giving them a $20 discount off the MSRP of $50 in return for their valued support.

When I read all of this, my jaw dropped. What made me even more shocked was witnessing the Stockholm Syndrome in the vBulletin Forums (closed to non-customers), where several budget customers were thanking Internet Brands for giving them this opportunity. Remarkable.

The Sting

I have a dilemma. Originally TheLaw.com was planning on using the vBulletin 4 platform, along with several other products, as part of our long term strategy. This was not because we wanted to do so, but switching to other forum software meant significant transitional costs in time, money and the unknown of reindexing and redirecting internal links on our site. As of right now it appears it will take a significant time for Internet Brands to fix what is wrong with vBulletin 4 while stabilizing the core product, which includes the potential overhaul of the forum templating and style system. Even if some of the technical problems are solved, it will take major time investment to customize my forums to the point where they return to being user friendly (the search interface, in particular, is a disaster in vBulletin 4) – only to have to do it again in version 4.1. If only the company would share its short and long term plans for the vBulletin product, which it does not.

But I have other concerns. How many fees am I going to have to pay in the future to Internet Brands? The past 3 years have been punishing and refusing me the ability to upgrade my software – without any prior notice or opportunity – reeks of a similar odor as consumer fraud. I have one other very significant concern and have personal experience with this issue – Internet Brands is now in competition with me and every site that runs vBulletin software. I cannot find examples of its own websites which have been converted to the new vBulletin 4 product. Why not? They certainly have the resources and far more “know how” than any of its customers whom they expected to upgrade. Are the customers being used as beta testers (guinea pigs) before converting their own sites? There is always the issue of Internet Brands having a competitive advantage, having inside knowledge of their own software and any future developments. It’s disconcerting, to say the least.

At this point I’ve begun experimenting with Invision Power Systems’ InvisionBoard. Wow! The interface, ease of use and overall direction are miles ahead of where vBulletin 4 is at this point. There has been some learning curve but  I’m going to launch one site shortly using IPB. I have been toying with the idea of converting The Law Forums to this great product. My main limitation? The extremely difficult migration of all user data and statistics from vBulletin and its corresponding plugins. This includes some unique searching and indexing functionality that make The Law Forums one of the best resources online to find law that pertains to your state and jurisdiction. There is also the issue of forum links which will now be forever changed. But we’ll have to see what sacrifices can be made since it is preferable to being held hostage and being forced to enjoy the experience. Time to get my Internet Brands Vuvezela and watch the World Cup Final.

Like Apple, Palm seems to believe that convincing users that wired connections are “old” and that wireless is “modern” and the only way to go. As such, there is better but limited connectivity of the Palm and your desktop device. The cool “Touchstone” which charges the phone and is actually plugged into the USB port (optionally into the wall) does little more than do just that – charge the device. It is not capable of mounting the phone as a hard drive, which requires a Pre owner to connect the device using another standard USB cable. The utility of this is beyond my comprehension but we can get past that inefficiency for the moment. I’ll explain later how this all ties into the sync of your phone with your PC – or rather the lack of it and the supposed need to do so.

Palms next bit of market circulates around the magic “cloud” which everything backs up – or perhaps not quite everything as most users are led to believe. Other than a “Palm profile” which you create, any other data stored on the phone is apparently not backed up. Give that wired sync is now considered “passe”, this leaves the Palm Pre without an adequate full backup and restore method. In contrast, the wireless “always connected” iPhone backs up the entire phone via iTunes’ connection to your dekstop via a wire. Syncing individual applications with your desktop applications is a time consuming mess (each one must be performed individually after pairing the two via WiFi) but at least you can restore a phone with all the data you had at the time of the loss, damage or corruption of the phone or its data. For those of you in a legal practice, I wonder how many of you will be thrilled to find out that it appears to be difficult or impossible to perform full local backups of your data. With regard to the data that can be backed up on the Palm Pre, it may be stored to a “cloud” of servers that belong to a third party, to which you may not even be in privity of contract and stored in an entirely different country.

Another issue that concerned me was synchronization on the Palm Pre and WebOs. There still aren’t many applications available for the Palm but, since Palm has apparently removed “hotsync” or the automatic synchronization of the phone with the desktop, it’s uncertain what must be done to synchronize all the third party applications you may buy for the iPhone and have counterparts you’d use on your desktop and netbook. At this late stage in the game, it appears that many third party developers are not being enticed by the Palm bounty being offered to create applications.  It’s difficult to tell what may be required of a developer to bring an application to market other than standalone games.

I’d like to point out that the Palm Pixi and the Pre Plus with WebOS represent some great, exciting innovations. But given the speed and growth of the marketplace, I’m wondering how Palm will weather the storm of competition. Apparently the API still doesn’t even allow developers to create microphone aided applications such as voice dialing, which for many of my fellow attorneys is critical in using your valuable time while commuting to and from the office. The inability to provide local backup and synchronization is, to me, a huge gaffe by Palm. Perhaps they were too consumed with addressing the iPhone market by investing more time in solving how the phone may sync with iTunes. As such, this puts the Pre into the “gaming consumer” category more than it does the “professional consumer” category which is a market the Palm Treos served well for a long time.

At this point Verizon Wireless seems to be placing bets on its future with Google’s Android based phones. The Droid campaign was ubiquitous and sales of the phone and others have been at an astounding pace. The Droid is supposedly topped by the Nexus One, an ultra powerful Android phone with hardware specifications that far outpace the more modest but easier to use Palm Pre Plus with WebOS. With almost 20,000 applications and a large variety of hardware, it’s difficult to ignore choosing an Android phone as an alternative. Whether or not you like Apple’s walled garden iPhone, it too will apparently be available at some point on CDMA networks. The question I’d ask if considering whether to invest in the Palm WebOS and its shrinking market share (approximately 3% or less) is whether Palm will continue to exist in 2011. Will it’s technology will be purchased by another company and eventually merged into another platform?

I’d enjoy hearing other opinions and suggestions on how the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi can conquer what seems to be a rather huge hole in its offering to business and legal professionals.

The Good:

• Almost serious crash free experience, even 64 bit operation – rarely ever do I require a reboot
• Eye candy, yet easy to use
• Control panel finally more organized and driver loading of most hardware is virtually painless, an enourmous feat with so many variations
• Did I say how smoothly it runs for the most part, even with 32 bit applications?

The Bad

• Not too much – I thought there would be a longer list
• Windows Ultimate is too costly an upgrade over Professional and provides a marginal difference
• Some older hardware does not have drivers that enable it to work properly (especially HP and Okidata) – not entirely Microsoft’s fault

The Ugly:

• When Microsoft misses, it’s by light years and not just miles
• Internet Explorer continues to crash at will, even on clean installs (thankfully there is Mozilla)
• The search function has actually been made worse, if that’s posssible – there is no way to easily understand how it’s supposed to work and drill down to find a document (thankfully there are many alternatives like 2 Bright Sparks)

From my experience, if you’re thinking about upgrading your PC or considering a Mac, I’d highly recommend Windows 7. If you’re already running XP or Vista successfully, there really isn’t much incentive to make major changes. If you’re not quite satisfied with some inherent limitations or stability, I can attest that even 2-3 year old equipment will shine brightly on Windows 7 and it’s easy to work with and troubleshoot. If you need a cute looking computer, don’t buy a Mac – just ask me for some great alternatives that you can customize to your personal taste!

I’m hoping there is more to this story than appears to be written and reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Company. Most of the articles I’ve read seem to be harping on the angle, that using Facebook to terminate medical benefits is wrongful. Nathalie Blanchard reportedly told CBC that her doctor advised her to have fun as a way to forget her problems, including nights out at a local bar and short getaways to sunny destinations. She complains that Manulife told her that her Facebook photos are evidence that she’s no longer depressed and she has hired an attorney to explore next steps. Blanchard’s lawyer, Tom Lavin, stated “I don’t think for judging a mental state that Facebook is a very good tool.”

I’m trying to understand how and why these extended benefits could have been justified in the first place. Thanks to the unchecked, massive theft responsible for the downfall in economies worldwide, numerous people are suffering from serious clinical depression. What is preventing all of them from receiving a year and a half vacation sick leave on an insurance company such as Ms. Blanchard? I thought that only Americans had such a “Constitutional Right” to happiness, not Canadians.

Blanchard’s lawyer requested a new psychiatric evaluation of his client and thinks Manulife’s investigation was inappropriate. Blanchard estimates that the Facebook debacle has cost her thousands of dollars in benefits. So how much has her debacle cost policy holders in the form of the rising price of health insurance premiums? Am I missing something here?

Challenge of Changing the Licensing Model

Changing the provisions of a software license can be most challenging, especially when it may significantly impact the timing and amount of payments required from customers. I think that there are at least three fundamental rules a company should follow and plan carefully in advance of such a change:

1. Communication: Listen to and address customer concerns – ensure that the licensing and pricing changes are easily understood, accomodating and provide reasonable prior notice
2. Pricing: Calculate a reasonably acceptable market price and appreciate your true ceiling for customer tolerance
3. Execution: Ensure your sales and customer support team is ready to carry out the change and address anticipated negative feedback

Part I: Adequacy of Communication

For almost 10 years, customers of Jelsoft could purchase a forum license for a fee of roughly $160-180 which provided one year of product updates and an annual maintenance renewal option of $40. Without any prior notice, vBulletin sent out a confusing “pre-sale” email on October 13 to “preferred customers” informing them of important details which would be effective immediately. A new “powerful” product was announced in two varieties – (i) a new version of the existing forum product and (ii) the “suite” which also included additional content management modules. The existing license structure would be be changed from the purchase and annual maintenance subscription fee model to a one time payment for each release of a major version of the software. Customers were given a two week decision period to either pay for an upgrade to the suite from their current vBulletin 3 forums product or pay significantly more later (emphasis added.)

As a preferred customer with an active license, we are excited to offer the vBulletin Publishing Suite at a pre-sale discount price of only $130 (over 50% off regular price). This is a truly limited one-time special offer giving you $120 off the upgrade price but will expire on Friday October 30, 2009.

Customers arrived at the newly designed vBulletin web site, sporting a confident Superman-like mascot tearing open his buttoned-down shirt to reveal a “V” on his tee and a nifty new powerful URL – best-forum-software.com. When trying to purchase this special offer, many customers discovered the $130 upgrade price for an active license was not accurate. What IB might have intended to say was that the only customers might qualify would be those customers who were still within the first year from date of purchase and those who had annually renewed their annual maintenance subscription fees and what Jelsoft prior referred to as a “license renewal” or “annual update service.” Since an owned vBulletin license does not “expire” and the licensee could continue to run the forum software (but not receive updates), then a customer who owned a license to the software, by definition, still has an “active license” that is “effective until terminated.”  The lack of an adequate distinction by vBS led to a wave of customer confusion that spread through the vBulletin presales forum like a pandemic. This pricing “anomaly” was explained by vBulletin General Manager, Ray Morgan’s post on October 14 not as an error, but as follows (emphasis added):

Due to an overwhelming response and interest in the pre-sale event for vBulletin 4.0 Publishing Suite, we’ve decided to extend an offer to those customers with inactive licenses. For licenses that expired in the last 12 months, we are offering an extra $45 discount for advance ordering, in addition to the publicly available pre-sale savings. This means the all new vB 4.0 Publishing Suite will cost you only $190, a total savings of $95. For licenses that expired more than 12 month ago, we are offering an extra $25 discount for advance ordering, in addition to the publicly available pre-sale savings. This means the all new vB 4.0 Publishing Suite will cost you only $210, a total savings of $75.

So the official explanation of the original email is still wrong but I’ll explain what they meant to say. vBS intended that NO upgrade offers were to be extended to customers who had active licenses but expired annual maintenance subscription (and perhaps expiring just a day ago.) As a result of “overwhelming response” from customers (complaints?), instead of paying $40 + $130 for a renewal fee for annual maintenance subscription plus the upgrade, customers would pay $60 + $130, resulting in a “savings” of $95. And if your annual maintenance subscription expired more than 12 months ago, instead of paying the $40 + $130 fee you’d pay $90 + $130, resulting in a “savings” of $75. Are all of these special customer “discounts” clear? Astonishingly, the response I read in the forums that “excused” the emailing snafu was the following honest explanation by a vBS staff member:

Actually, the system was written so that it doesn’t make any differentiation between active or inactive licenses. Why we don’t know. You can sure it will be changed before the next big promotion though.

This is certainly not what is expected from the marketing department of a public company. I appreciated the rare, honest reply but let’s have more transparency. Considering that Internet Brands and vBS promised vehemently that subsequent promotions will never be as generous as the current pre-sale, I wonder whether the apologies will be forgiven by customers. Even more interesting is that contract and consumer law suggest that a unilateral and non-obvious mistake in an offer is binding on the offeror – I wonder if this would make for an actionable case by customers with active licenses but expired maintenance subscriptions.

All of these issues could have been dealt with appropriately had vBS provided some prior notice to customers about imminent and important license changes. Management could have responded to and addressed important and overlooked customer concerns. In addition to a feeling of disrespect, customers were not provided with ample time to understand their options and make reasonable choices. For those who invested in multiple licenses, the huge cost of having to shell out $130 to 210 per license within two short weeks could present significant financial challenges. Notification to clients of these policy changes would be extremely difficult and require a lightning quick response for an explanation, approval and payment. Did anyone at Internet Brands solicit opinions from customers and address what would seem to be obvious customer concerns? Why the need for a high pressure two week pre-sale? Where was the dialogue? But more than just an inconvenience to customers, not having knowledge of the new policies would result in customers losing actual money which would find its way into the pockets of vBS and Internet Brands, as you’ll see shortly.

Part II: Justification of Pricing

The world of php development with visible, modifiable source code is an interesting, unique, creative community environment. Jelsoft grew exponentially because the founders and original employees, many of whom are unfortunately no longer with the company, understood the quid pro quo — provide a good product at a reasonable cost, care about your customers and you will generate enthusiasm and loyalty from a creative group of zealous adopters who will volunteer enhancements on their own time. It was commonplace to see customers donating free technical support and valuable vBulletin product enhancements for free, significantly increasing the value of the underlying forum product.

In general, annual maintenance fees and software updates will rarely extend beyond the 50-70% cost of the purchase price. Customers feel that they should have retain some tangible residual benefit as a product adopter and investor. This sentiment is probably more prevalent amongst a customer base consisting of a contributing, programming, developing online community. I am not sure that the new management team at Internet Brands that replaced most of the founding team fully understands and appreciates why Jelsoft grew into the juggernaut it has been and how to properly maintain the symbiotic relationship. An offer for a $130 upgrade or $285 new is not by itself an unfair price - I think it could be - but the timing required to pay and lack of equally fair treatment to customers across the board is a significant problem (e.g. the additional penalties to licensees with expired licenses and those wishing a bare forum upgrade.) But the two week pricing ultimatum and significant reduction of the value of purchased software licenses seemed to send one message to the loyal development community - there is not much perceived value in your being a patron and contributor and that we, the company, are in sole control of our own destiny.

From my deciphering of the terms (please correct me if this is wrong), forum owners were left with two choices: (i) pay a forum upgrade fee of $175 that is an astounding 90% of the cost of buying a new forum license outright ($195), or (b) within two weeks and without seeing the product or having an estimated release date, pay from $130 up to $210 based upon whether your annual maintenance subscription was active. If it wasn’t active and you didn’t know you should have renewed for $40 (how could you?), the “special offer” meant that you’d pay $5 less or $15 more than the price of buying a brand new forum! As a result of the Internet Brands pricing plan, the value of a customer’s vBulletin forum license version 3 plunged instantly from $180 to practically nothing. After all, who would pay much for a $180 license that now cost $175 just to upgrade if a new license cost just $195? $5 to save $15? The same went for the $250 upgrade fee post pre-sale, which is just $35 less than the $285 asking price. So what is the net result and why is this important? Because by making the customers $180 license worth almost nothing on the resale market, all sales by new customers will be new licenses purchased directly from Internet Brands. This might explain how Internet Brands is “setting sales records” in their press releases!

It was even worse for customers who purchased vBulletin 3 forum add-on products (such as blogs and project tools) from vBS, who apparently lost their $50+ investments, being entitled only to the same upgrade options to the vBulletin suite as a customer who purchased only the forum product. Customers who wanted or needed to just stay with version 3.x and continue receiving the upgrades are offered no $40 option at all of which I am aware – the only choice is to pay $175 – $210 to be forced to upgrade to the pre-sold but still unreleased version 4. It seems unconscionable to not inform a customer who bought version 3.x before the pre-sale of a need to pay an annual maintenance subscription for $40 or continue to offer this option. Numerous requests in the vBulletin forum to define actual company policy went unanswered.

In the forums, customers alleged consumer fraud – that the $310 price paid by customers occurred because vBS was selling product under old licensing terms when it knew that the sudden change to the new model would require an additional $130 investment. In my experience and to promote fairness, it is industry custom for software developers to provide free upgrades for license purchases made in close proximity to a release of a major upgrade – a grace period. To my knowledge vBS provided no such benefit. As a result, a customer who purchased vBulletin 3 in late Semptember for $180 would need to pay an additional $130 in the October pre-sale in order to be guaranteed receipt of all vBulletin 4 updates. $180 + $130 = $310.  With reasonable prior notice, that same customer might have waited a week to pay just $235 for a new license. Customers with expired annual maintenance subscriptions had expired could pay $40 and avoid newly created vBS penalties of an additional $20 – 80 for the upgrade.  I personally don’t see the cost “savings” – do you?

Part III: Successful Execution

As if the pricing confusion didn’t cause enough chaos, vBS didn’t show any vBulletin 4 product to customers who were expected to pay as much as $210 to upgrade. General Manager Ray Morgan responded to mounting complaints in the vBS customer forums about not seeing what had been allegedly in development for a year with his post on the night of October 21 (emphasis added):

We know everyone is anxious to see vB4 in action, so here it comes! We are planning to upgrade vBulletin.com to vB4 starting very early tomorrow morning. The plan is to put /forums/ into maintenance mode in the middle of the night (Pacific time) and be live again by mid-morning. Please note that this rollout will be an early beta release. By early, I mean really early, much earlier than betas have historically been rolled out on vb.com. It is not a release candidate, so there will be rough spots, which we’re still working on, but we are choosing to make this available now in order to give you the earliest possible view of what is being built.

So the product being sold in this limited pre-sale offer is in early stage development – I mean really early. Perhaps I’m understanding why there is no anticipated release date. The message continued:

Why didn’t you wait until the product was more “done”?
To give you the earliest possible view of the new vB4.

Why didn’t you wait until the CMS could be released along with Forum and Blog?
To give you the earliest possible view of the new vB4.

Why aren’t you delaying the release until feature _____ is implemented?
In the spirit of release early, release often, we want to get releases out to customers early, in order to get real-world feedback, and often, so that they can start benefiting from basic features as soon as they are available, with more advanced features following shortly after in subsequent releases.

See you in the morning!

So vBS was upgrading their own forum during pre-sale week to be nice to its customers, not to address mounting concerns of “seeing is believing.” Well, the vBS customer forum wasn’t back the following morning… nor the next morning after! During the extended downtime period, customers lampooned the new vBS Superman reference, best forum software URL, and a mysterious cartoon skunk that appeared on the “down for maintenance” page where the customer support forums had been. General manager, Ray Morgan, explained on the afternoon of October 24 why the customer support forums were inaccessible for over 24 hours (emphasis added):

We decided to take some extra time before bringing the forums back up after the upgrade to 4.0. Briefly, here’s what happened.

First, the good news: The installation of 4.0 itself actually went as planned. The upgrade to 4.0 Publishing Suite from the 3.8.4 base product was seamless, and that agrees with the success the alpha/beta team has seen up to this point. The issues we encountered were related to the fact that the instance of vB running on vBulletin.com has integration points with various business systems: administration, release management, ticket support, the product information site, and more. Cooler heads make better problem solvers, so we chose to investigate and solve the problems with the site offline rather than live to the world.

The issues we ran into are unique to our environment, and they are not things that would factor into a normal customer installation. We’re happy to have the forums live and stable. As noted in my announcement Wednesday night, this is a very early beta release, so there are still known bugs yet to be fixed before the gold. As you find bugs, you may report them here as usual. As we work through the beta cycle, we will periodically update this installation to include the latest bug fixes.

Got it – so this wise decision made during a limited pre-sale period included extended downtime because the cool, sharp heads thought it would be wise to show off the forums on their own live customer support forum and not on a testing site. They also provided no view of the back end administration or any of the extras included in the suite. I won’t elaborate on the extended confusion in the vBulletin customer support forums and allegations by customers that they were banned for criticizing the company’s handling of this entire upgrade experience.

Conclusions – So Where do we and vBS go from here?

As a long time owner of vBulletin software and contributor to the vBulletin customer forums and vBulletin.org modifications forum, I’m not sure where this once innovative product is headed. The product certainly seems far from being released, especially the suite. I can only imagine that this presale has placed great stress on the development team to officially release this very early beta product out the door as soon as possible, even with a multitude of issues (and upcoming explanations that this was done “to satisfy the customer and get a first exciting look.”)

It seems to me that many customers who chose to upgrade did so not because they had any faith in the upcoming product - they hoped to save the fleeting value of their investment in their vBulletin forum licenses by reselling the suite version later when the price rises to full retail. I wonder whether the flow of free forum modifications may slow to a trickle by angry contributing developers who feel unappreciated. I’ve been forced to look at several competing forum software packages, all of which are quite impressive – these include the commercial Invision Power Board Forum Suite and the free myBB, phpBB and Simple Machines Forums software. Customers have been vocal about their migration away from vBulletin – angry sites like vbTruth, vbFlames, vBull, and if names are correct, it seems this may have compelled vBS General Manager Ray Morgan to provide explanations on an external site, AdminAddict.

New customers may question whether to trust this new Internet Brands management team, who are not providing any reasonable estimates as to time periods for major version upgrades. During times of limited cash flow, will these paid number “version upgrades” arrive with greater frequency? It’s difficult to say. The old guard was beyond reproach. This new executive management team seems to be as confident as ever, believing that their power of market share will ultimately outlast any initial negative customer dissension. The licensees will whine and complain but, in the end, they will begrudgingly crawl back and pay the upgrade fees for the best forum software… ever. And they will donate their modifications for free en masse. This remains to be seen, especially during the present “global recession.” What we can say for sure is that this is certainly a good case study to follow, from a business and legal perspective, for companies seeking to change their software licensing models.

A significant part of the unacceptable iPhone battery drain comes from Apple’s insane notion that the iPhone is always connected wirelessly to “the cloud” and should always try to connect to retrieve new information at every opportunity. This will occur regardless of how the user utilizes the phone and Apple doesn’t seem to think those user settings are important.

Try using the mail application, for instance. I have several accounts which all are unfortunately separated into their own mailboxes (you cannot consolidate mailboxes on the built-in mail application.) Each time you merely seek to look up an email to get a name, phone number or address, the iPhone will attempt to connect to the server and retrieve new mail. If you do this multiple times daily as I do (and most people who use email hourly), your phone will drain rapidly and there is nothing you can do about it. Unfortunately Apple provides precious few email options and doesn’t include an option to stop checking each time you open a mailbox account. The solution? Get rid of all your unnecessary mailboxes, use only the most critical accounts and check them as rarely as possible.

Another problem I’ve noticed is that, even if I’m using Airplane Mode (radio off), virtually every application I fire up tells me that there is no Internet connection or that Location Services is turned off. The frequency in which this occurs is maddening. I cannot imagine that these constant messages don’t burn up more battery time as applications search for connectivity to the cloud. Since I spend a great deal of time on the subway train and out of range, I use Airplane Mode every day for at least 90-150 minutes. Wouldn’t you think that, by now, Apple would have a setting to stop these nag screens ?

Another problem is the inane restriction that Apple has in not allowing any file synchronization using the USB port other than what iTunes permits. This means that if you have documents or other files that you sync, you must maintain a WiFi connection. For example, I use Dataviz’ Documents to Go and also the QuickOffice application to synchronize my office work files. With my Palm and Blackberry, each time I had the phone in the dock, a USB synchronization allowed all my files to be synchronized. It was poetry in motion. With the iPhone, I must make sure WiFi is turned on, open up each application individually and make sure it is paired and/or connected via WiFi and manually synchronize. It’s enough to tear your hair out and drain your battery too.

While the iPhone certainly has its benefits and can be an enjoyable experience, as a practical business phone it’s a liability at present. I’m afraid that we might not see a remedy coming from Apple any time soon. Ultimately your choices are either (a) consider using your phone less intenstively, (b) buy a bulky extended battery pack, or (c) make sure you’ve got charging opportuinities at your remote locations. Other battery saving tips are available on Apple’s site, such as turning down the brightness, etc. but these are just general tips and won’t solve the ultimate issue.

Trina Thompson is suing Monroe College for her tuition money, finding that her college degree is not resulting in an instant job. She is also seeking $2,000 to deal with the stress she has been going  through looking for a full time job on her own without the perceived hand holding of the career placement office. What is important to note is that she’s suing pro se, by herself, and is not being represented by an attorney looking to break new ground. It’s a rough economy and it seems that everyone is looking to find money somewhere.

The iPhone 3GS is a true, graceful experience of combining minimalism and modernity with marketing and packaging that is second to none. It was exciting to unwrap and unbox the new gadget that promised so much fun and functionality. It does deliver, no doubt. As a music and video player, it’s still the clear leader both in form, function and audio/video quality. But how useful and practical is it for business? I’ve heard it said many times that it’s more an entertainment device and, to a large extent, this is still true.  This article will explain my experience with the iPhone and also provide information on how it differs from the functionality found in most other phones. Depending upon how you work, this might not all be a completely positive and streamlined experience, especially if you don’t own a Mac.

You must impulse buy everything @ iTunes!

I installed Apple’s synchronization software – iTunes – and was disturbed to discover that the mere act of registering the iPhone with Apple required me to provide Apple my personal information and credit card number. Apparently this might be the case because Apple wants to set up an account for you at the iTunes store, the only place you can buy applications approved for the iPhone. Interestingly enough, I also found that I couldn’t set up a “shopping cart” and could only use “one click purchasing” – the power of impulse purchases where you don’t see just how much all those applications really cost in total. I was beginning to sense a trend focusing on control and revenue from value added services, which is apparently a relatively common perception of Apple’s focus these days.

I downloaded several applications and found them extremely useful. Facebook’s iPhone application is marvelous. A Google Analytics application allows me to see, at a glance, all of my web site metrics including what happens at TheLaw.com. Safari is a quick, useful and delightful web browser to use. The music and media portion were quick, easy to operate and the screen is beautiful. It’s obvious why the iPod is so popular. Google Maps is splendid being sprawled across a large screen. RSS, podcasting, glorious handling of rich media. One handed operation with the iPhone is generally not possible but there are advantages to its OS that are time saving over a Blackberry. If you type numerous emails, this phone is probably not going to work for you. While you will not get the same, satisfying tactile feedback from a physical keyboard, I was surprised that the iPhone’s screen-based keyboard with error correction seemed to be better than I had imagined. If you don’t regularly type long emails, the iPhone keyboard is extremely serviceable for email with practice and if you have small to medium sized thumbs. It has specialized functions to aid with typing (excellent word correction) as well as cursor placement (hold to zoom in on the screen to place a cursor.) My only gripe is that typing commas or periods takes too many keystrokes and the only way to get a a different keyboard layout is to hack (or “jailbreak”) your iPhone. Instructions on usage are sparse and you will best served downloading the manual for the iPhone from the Apple web site and giving it a quick read.

Jailbreak! If Apple doesn't think you need it, you're not getting it from third parties.

But shortly thereafter, I began to discover the frustration that other iPhone users conveyed to me but could not properly articulate. Apple’s need for total control over the iPhone can, at times, greatly undermine its utility. Unless Apple provides all useful and necessary system extensions, you’re simply not going to see them in the iPhone. At times it will feel as if the iPhone is a work in progress with some glaring omissions – after all, it took Apple years and three versions of its iPhone operating system just to implement basic copy and paste functionality.

For example, the iPhone is noticeably missing an easy access “today screen.” Important to any business professional is the ability to see the daily agenda, current tasks and phone notifications quickly. On the iPhone, this is not possible except if the phone has been hacked. Apple is so vigilant about preventing third party developers from creating such necessary additions that it even went so far as to file a patent two years ago for the creation of a long overdue and extremely common functionality. A today screen won’t happen unless Apple provides it. Looking for battery saving utilities that can control common settings for your phone in one contenient place? They just don’t exist as Apple has not provided necessary tools to developers to improve what they believe works well enough on its own. It’s either Apple’s way or the highway! Other odd ommissions the inability to add/remove custom text messages sounds and other alerts (which apparently use a different file type and location) and the need to use command line programs such as “ssh” to log into the phone and make changes. Chances are that virtually all the software tools to customize your iPhone are not provided by Apple but by third parties, which is in direct contrast to what most would expect and where Nokia excels with its Symbian phone customization software.

With regard to reception – at times my AT&T GSM iPhone received better signal than my Verizon Wireless Blackberry 8330 – even in the New York City Subway (take 34th Street and Herald Square as a good example.) The phone reception isn’t perfect, cuts out in some areas not covered as well as Verizon (such as Roosevelt Island), but the audio quality when connected was at least as good as other phones. I did find the audio quality of the flat ear speaker to be somewhat tinny and difficult to hear in noisier areas, but not enough to be a dealbreaker. I use a headest which minimizes this issue. The audio and video player is second to none, both in terms of functionality and audio fidelity. Perhaps I could get over my fair first impression and use the iPhone for business after all – there is tremendous utility that benefits from the iPhone’s operating system.

No spam filtering. Smut everywhere.

Email POP or IMAP setup on the iPhone is quick, simple to use and well crafted. It visually provides a very good user interface and experience. My joy was short lived when I began to realize that I couldn’t easily have emails automatically set to justify to the width of the screen. My Blackberry was able to format these emails automatically so that text was legible at the right size. My choice on the iPhone was to either view in landscape mode or make the size of the screen bigger and scroll from side to side and down to read, which is rather laborious. There was no way to filter spam and none of the 60,000+ applications in the iTunes store provided much relief. Sadly, I read a post by a spam prevention developer that Apple simply doesn’t provide tools for developers to modify or extend the iPhone OS in certain areas. Common features such as “select all” to delete every item in a mailbox is not provided, nor the ability to dump email from all your accounts into one consolidated mailbox. It is not possible at present to download email attachments. Email is getting there but will take some time to add functionality that most of us who use email regularly have come to expect as standard on other devices.

If you run a business and manage any kind of photos, text files or other media files with regularity, the iPhone may provide a frustrating and disorganized experience. Apple believes that the phone should follow the principles of cloud computing and use wireless technologies to transfer all of your documents and files. Not surprisingly, some problems can be resolved using wireless services purchased from Apple such as “mobileme” which will add additional cost to your purchase. But more disturbing is that Apple didn’t leave any option to use the “old” method of simply using a cable to connect your device to a PC to drag and drop files or synchronize them.

Unlike any other PDA you’ve had for years, the iPhone has no “disk mode” – it isn’t made to act as a USB drive where you can plug it into your PC, drag and drop files onto the phone’s “hard drive” which makes the files available to all your phone’s applications. If you’re a doctor or lawyer who uses dictation, get used to having to manually turning on WiFi and connecting to a WiFi enabled computer just to transfer your files each day. But even with WiFi there is no drag and drop process. There is no file “explorer” type functionality to browse the phone’s vast 32GB storage area – each application can only see files which have been transferred to the phone using that application’s specific transfer utility. The uploaded files are stored in that application’s private folder, so you can expect documents and files to be scattered amongst different applications on your phone and not in one convenient place. If you only require document viewing, there are applications that allow you to use your iPhone as a USB drive and drag and drop files onto the mounted iPhone. But this method does not allow any of the files, for example a photo, to be accessible for editing in your favorite photo editor – remember that the application you want to use must be the application that transferred the file to your device via WiFi or other wireless method. I think this is awkward at best.

iTunes synchronization still does not handle – to my great surprise – any documents such as text, Word, Excel and PDF files. iTunes only handles “tunes” such as audio and video files.  I find this extremely frustrating and time consuming. As my iPhone stays in its USB dock most of the time, connecting it to WiFi is, to me, a needless hassle. If you have 3 different applications to read or manipulate files, you must connect via WiFi (by finding the phone’s IP address or pairing the device) and then using each individual application to transfer respective files and to sync them. If you’re on the road and don’t have access to WiFi or to the wireless network, you simply won’t be able to get a file into your iPhone to view or edit using your application of choice. And as per the above, even if a document is on the phone, you can’t move it from location to location – the only solution I could find is to use application A to download the device onto a hard disk and then use application B to upload that file back onto the iPhone. Again, this makes file management an incredible chore and unique only to the iPhone.

No, that's not file navigation.

Let’s try a real world example – Documents to Go, the standard for Microsoft Office viewing and editing on many mobile platforms. How do you get files onto the iPhone for viewing and editing in Docs to Go? If you receive a Word document via email, there is no capability to download the attachment onto your iPhone at all. Even sending to a Hotmail or web-based email account is no solution, since the iPhone browser (Safari) will not allow you to download the document. You cannot simply drag and drop your Word document onto the phone if it’s plugged into the USB port. And, remember, there is no document synchronization option using a wired connection either. So… how do you get that file into the iPhone? (i) You must have a WiFi connection. (ii) You must obtain a random number on the Docs to Go iPhone application to enter into the Docs to Go desktop software to “pair” the device (even more complicated with QuickOffice which requires you to obtain the phone’s IP address). (iii) You can now transfer files using the Docs to Go synchronization software. In contrast to how this has been done on other mobile platforms with “one button” or automatic synchronization of all yor files, you can see how much of a hassle this can be if you intend to use Docs to Go.

Outlook sync works quite well but don’t expect synchronizing your calendar to be easy if you’re a power user. I discovered rather quickly that the built in calendar system has limitations and doesn’t provide several common features such as default alarm time, e.g. setting your alarm to ring one hour before every appointment unless manually entered by the user. There are some PIM replacements but far from their counterparts appearing on other mobile operating systems. Many PIM applications follow Apple’s “cloud computing and always wireless” focus, choosing to sync with Google calendar rather than Outlook (such as the popular Pocket Informant.) Task management is not offered out of the box, none of the good choices are Outlook compatible and virtually none have desktop clients for the PC to view and enter your tasks. You’ll probably need to view calendar in one desktop/web-based application and tasks in another. Synchronizing your iPhone with two desktop computers requires going to users who have hacked files to “trick” iTunes into permitting this function. That’s not acceptable, especially since most business professionals will have at least a desktop home/office PC and a traveling netbook or laptop.

So what can you expect from the iPhones 60,000+ applications? Some of them are very good and extremely easy to use. This is a tremendous asset the iPhone has over many other platforms. The overwhelming majority of iPhone applications are games, useful tools for purposes other than managing the iPhone, and iPhone optimized versions of popular web sites – the iPhone is the new WAP. If you’re looking for efficiency navigating the most popular web sites, there is no subsitute for the iPhone.

iPhone apps are the new WAP. Superb ease and user experience. Get used to the advertisements!

Numerous iPhone applications provide a completely new experience that is different from other “freeware” on other mobile platforms. They are designed to collect an email address from the user (usually for service based applications) and/or to provide what appears as flash-based advertising on the iPhone. There is a great potential for marketing and revenue collection on the iPhone which is one incentive for iPhone developers.

On the dark side, there are a dearth of external applications that enhance the existing limitations of the phone OS and business tools that work well with a PC. If a feature isn’t present in the phone, it could be a while until you’ll see it appear. It took years just for Apple to provide “copy and paste” functionality on the iPhone and we wonder how long it will be until there is spam filtering, power saving utilities, true file management and attachment downloading, all which are critical for business and available on every other platform but the iPhone. As echoed before, most good solutions are available only on the Mac, such as tasks management.

Battery life – unfortunately with the iPhone 3GS, there is a significant probability that your iPhone may not last through a single day without charging the device somewhere. Apple reduced the size of the battery in the iPhone 3GS by 15%,which is exacerbaged by the iPhone’s dependency on using energy challenging wireless connections and applications that always believe you are connected. My estimation is that 40 minutes of phone usage, 80 minutes of PDA usage, 30 minute email check and 40 minutes playing music will easily push your phone at or below the critical 35% mark, even with Apple’s “solution” for its middling 3GS battery life (recommending that purchasers reduce or remove all the features which compelled consumers to buy the iPhone.) An example of why the phone drains batteries so quickly is the software – if you do so much as open an email account to review your emails, the iPhone attempts to connect wireless. There is no way to turn this off. And like numerous other iPhone applications, even being in “airplane mode” with the radio off, applications will warn you incessantly that the radio is off and give you a convenient but annoying ability to open the control panel to turn it back on.

Unfortunately Apple also seals the iPhone so that there can be no user replaceable battery. If you’re questioning whether the battery life can be anemic, ask yourself why there are so many third party aftermarket solutions, which for the iPhone translates to purchasing an expensive power brick to carry with you on your journey. Battery saving utilities you’d find on Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Palm or Android devices are only available on the iPhone if you “jailbreak” the phone, meaning you have used a program to break Apple’s proprietary OS from preventing the use non-Apple approved applications (and which will void your warranty.) Even the “today” screen which is popular on virtually every handheld but the iPhone, is only available from a third party developer for phones that have been freed from Apple’s shackles.

Very useful application and the bottom advertisement is ubiquitous!

In the end, there are many positive aspects of the iPhone I didn’t cover including its fast processor, ease of use, excellent wireless implementation, etc. I merely covered the issues to let the buyer beware before purchasing the iPhone. For most who just want to view documents they have received in email (like the old Blackberry), the iPhone will work just fine. It has a superior user interface for many applications but it comes at the expense of being very limited in many instances with significant improvements potentially a long way off. If you like the ease of drag and drop – which I do – you’ll find getting document management a tedious, unrefined chore on the iPhone. This is double if you do a great deal of file transferring on the road and don’t have access to WiFi at work to connect to your PC.

Am I keeping my iPhone? The jury is out. On one hand, it’s a joy to have every day on my daily commute. It has so many applications that make surfing popular web sites a joy to use. On the other hand, the constant need to recharge the device and awkard document management that requires WiFi leaves me wondering whether I’ll still be happy when all those incredible mobile phones released in Europe and Asia finally hit the US. I’m not sure that the Palm Pre is ready for prime time but, if my sources are correct, if you can hold off for 3-6 months, you’ll start seeing new arrivals on the market like the powerful HTC Touch Pro2 that may be more satisfying for document usage and email management than the iPhone. The rumored “Storm 2″ may also provide significant enhancements that might make the business tailored Blackberry the mobile device of choice for business. The iPhone is a great tool and whether it’s unique and proprietary system will work for you is your choice.

While this blog does not usually touch upon criminal law matters except as they relate to technology and the Internet, I found this story so outrageous that I felt comment was in order. For those of you unfamiliar with this story, a 59 year old construction worker was on his way home from work and allegedly (according to Stallworth) was trying to catch a bus. Stallworth stated that he flashed his lights to warn the pedestrian but still ended up striking and killing the man. At the time of the accident, Stallworth’s blood alochol level was .126 – well above the Florida state limit of .08. Just how alert was the NFL star? Unfortunately we’ll never be able to hear the victim’s side of the story and it seems that the justice system doesn’t seem to care.

According to Christopher Lyons, Stallworth’s attorney, part of the sentence reduction had to do with his client’s owning up to his responsibility by staying at the scene of the accident, calling the police, taking a blood test voluntarily and doing what he could to help this unfortunate man. I’m not unsympathetic. I think it’s rather noble in this day and age where star athletes clearly believe they are above even the Almighty himself (see “Plaxico Burress” who is now trying to use this case to avoid jail time for his felony entirely.) Of note, Stallworth received a $35 million contract to play football – and that appears to be a factor in this case, especially by the timing of the settlement.

Miami-Dade State Attorney, Katherine Fernandez Rundle, discussed the rationale for this highly reduced sentence. Rundle cited Stallworth’s lack of previous criminal record, cooperation with police, willingness to accept a plea deal, and the requests of the Reyes family – particularly the victim’s 15-year-old daughter who wanted the case resolved to avoid any more pain. This reeks of a poor family being offered plenty of money to drown their sorrows in a financial windfall. I can see a 15 year old girl acting badly and rationalizing that nothing will bring back her father so she might as well enjoy the money – but the prosecutor? What was Rundle thinking? It’s an outrageous message to society and, without any indication that this had to do with a weak case, this sets a whole new precedent for the grossly irresponsible, willing to take serious risks of endangering the lives of others in driving after being intoxicated.

Stallworth isn’t the first NFL player to have a light punishment as a result of a fatal DUI accident.  Leonard Little, defensive end with the Los Angeles Rams, was also convicted of “involuntary manslaughter” after driving with a very high .019 blood alcohol level. He received 90 days in jail after ending someone’s life as a direct result of his carelessness that could and should easily have been avoided. He’s still playing football – despite being arrested again for DUI, six years after his drinking killed an innocent woman. It’s a very sad day for sober Americans.

On May 12, Carroll reports that the servers now exist in two separate facilities, there are problems, but by the end of the day, a “major portion” of the servers will be under the same roof. Not quite sure what that means but on May 13, another update states that there are some expected glitches, and while some blogs appear to have been lost, all data is still intact and 3 move phases were completed. (How many phases were planned for this move?) At least there is a daily account. Forward to May 17 and the report is now that 2/3 of all the servers have been moved. So if you do the math, does that mean that there should be 12/3 more phases left? I’m not quite sure but, after all this time, it’s quite apparent that several people are going to need to find new jobs (and perhaps a good attorney.)

Complete silence for the next two weeks – that’s right, two weeks. Carroll announces on June 3 that the move was completed two days earlier and that the move of 900 machines has saved 50% of their rack footprint. The plan was apparently for “only five weeks” but the cost savings was well worth it, giving the company a serious chance to succeed moving forward. Sure there is some cleanup necessary but (wiping sweat from his brow), Carroll assures us all it was worth it and it’s Miller Time for the incredible Technorati Team. Not so fast, Dorion. Things still aren’t working properly (in fact, I can’t even properly complete the claim and setup of this blog as of June 14.)

It’s silence again, this time until June 12. Now we hear from Jen McLean, VP of Marketing. When reporting is passed to the marketing group, you know something serious is going on behind closed doors as the company seems to be moving the wash into full spin cycle (but is apparently still all wet.)

“It’s been a tumultuous month. For us – and unfortunately for you. We’re sorry for the frustration and the less than great service. While not an excuse, here is the reason:”

Yes, it has been a very tumultous month with numerous outages and problems… and absolutely no support for blog owners to have an idea of what is actually going on.  But wait a minute – didn’t we hear the reason for this move many weeks ago?

“We changed co-location facilities. We, well the four members of our ops team, moved 1,000 servers and ALL of our real-time search infrastructure. Things are now returning to normal, although slower than we would have liked.”

Quite a herculean effort!!  I think we went from 600 to 900 to over 1,000. Actually, I think Carroll’s exact words were “We have successfully moved nearly 900 machines…” just a few days earlier. Regardless, I don’t think many Technorati users want to hear what an incredible effort it has been – they just want to be able to gage expectations.

“We haven’t lost any data – so when things are back to normal your link counts and authority will be exactly where they should be.”

That’s great but you’ve been repeating yourselves for the past several weeks… two months on the Internet is like two centuries in dog years… or something like that.

“We’ll follow up in more detail so you have information on exactly which services have been affected and how, and when they’ll be completely functional again.”

I don’t know how to tell you this, Jen, but the problem is that all your users know the problems – what they need to know is an understanding of when there will be a solution! We certainly hope that the good folks at Technorati can finally get the service back to full working order. But these embarrassing and long lingering technical problems at Technorati and the complete abandonement of all support makes Twitter look like a fine tuned, well oiled machine. Point made. In the meanwhile, get this feed from Feed burner!