Author: Veritas

In our continuing series of bringing truth to Internet Brands, I want to start this off by showing you a clip Star Wars.

Admiral Ackbar’s famous words “It’s a Trap” has spawned a series of parodies over the years. But it also serves as a great launching point for this discussion: Have you fallen into Internet Brands’ Trap?

I refer you to Mr. Joseph Rosenblum’s Declaration, item 9 and 15:

Item 9:

At one of these meetings at Interet Brands’ corporate office in El Segundo, CA on September 4, 2008, Darby and employees of Jelsoft and Internet Brands discussed the development of new features and functions for vBulletin Software. During this meeting, Internet Brands’ Chief Executive Officer Robert “Bob” Brisco, Darby and several Jelsoft employees and I developed off page, on page, and other ideas for a search engine optimization feature for vBulletin. A “road map” for these ideas was discussed at length by the participatns at the meeting. Darby was an active participant in that meeting. During same:

1. The purpose of the meeting was to purpose all functions and features that should be in future versions of vBulletin software
2. The “road map” for search engine optimization be written on a white board;
3. Darby took and retained a picture of the white board with vBulletin “road map” written upon it; and
4. Using his laptop computer, Darby took notes regarding the matters discussed.

After the meeting, Darby sent an email to Internet Brands team members who attended the meeting, which contained the photo that he took of the “road map” on the white board. A true and accurate copy of the same is attached as Exhibit “A” hereto. Exhibit A recites two dozen forward-looking ideas for vBulletin search engine optimization

Item 15:

Thereafter, I reviewed the xenforo.com website, information, software code, videos and forum posts thereon, as well as third-party websites mentioned xenforo. Portions of the software code on the Xenforo.com website were readily accessible through the website. Moreover relevant videos, forum posts, and third-party websites were readily accessible by clicking public links on the xenforo.com website. At least six of the ideas, concepts and architecture for search engine optimization that were set forth on the “road map” on Exhibit A are currently being utilized in the xenForo bulletin board software

How many of you have actually questioned what these ideas, concepts and architecture that Mr. Rosenblum claims? Or even taken time to even research what those so-called trade secrets are?

My fear is that too many have fallen for the con artist trick, where they quickly flash a badge at you saying they are law enforcement, and not giving a chance to inspect the badge. Upon closer inspection, you realize the badge is nothing more than a shiny shield painted in gold paint.

Are we challenging Internet Brands’ claims? We certainly are. Let’s find the truth.

Let’s go look at them. Let’s scrutinize them. Let’s put Internet Brands in the hot seat, and their trade secrets under a microscope.

Opening Mr. Rosenblum’s declaration, looking at Exhibit “A”, and blowing up that horribly cropped image to 350% magnification, I can read roughly 80-85% of the text. Let’s look at these “so called trade secrets” and “intellectual property” that was written on the white board.

Off Page:

• Social Bookmark Widgets
• URL/Permalinks
• Sitemap
• Trackbacks/linkbacks
• Duplicate Content Management
• Intelligent Defaults/Installation
• Google Analytics
• Gmail? Report
• robots.txt

On Page:

• Semantic Markup
• Meta/HTTP headers
  • keywords
  • descriptions
• title tags
• keyword density
• title attributes (img, a)
• nofollow

?

• What is Configurable
• link baiting?
• list maker
• polls?
• wizard

The last column is guidelines, where there are six items listed but they are not legible. (Anyone want to give a shot reading it? All I am able to make out are URL, Callback, Minimize configuration, and Keywords.)

In other words, Internet Brands’ attempted to pull a fast one on the public. The noticeable absence of specifying the contents out on the board in the declaration itself should have raised eyebrows. The fact no care was put into detailing the contents of the whiteboard draws scrutiny from me as the picture should only validate the claim, not be the claim itself.

Don’t take my word for it. Download the PDF yourself and open it up in Adobe PDF. Zoom in with 350x magnification and read it with your own eyes.

I believe it to be a tactical move on the part of Internet Brands as I wonder if anyone intends on reading the contents of the board. I see this to be a move on the part of Internet Brands’ as  “see we have these ideas and they are on a whiteboard. I have a picture too! It’s proof Mr. Darby stole from us!!!!” when in reality and upon closer inspection, those ideas are common knowledge and readily available to anyone who has access to a Google search.

But case in point, how many of the above is actually “trade secrets”? Correct me if I’m wrong, but 90-95% of the above items can be found in vBSEO! GASP! Another dozen or so of these items can be found on hundreds of websites dedicated to SEO! HECK! EVEN A BUNCH OF THESE ITEMS CAN BE FOUND ON GOOGLE’S OWN BLOG REGARDING SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION.

So my question at the end of the day:  WHAT IS MR. ROSENBLUM BLOWING HOT AIR ABOUT? I SEE NO TRADE SECRETS, OR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.

Do you?

Kaizen – It is at the heart of Toyota’s corporation. Certainly we’ve heard Bob Brisco of Internet Brands tout it, but have we seen him actually spearhead and lead Internet Brands into doing things more effectively and efficiently? Kaizen is about finding ways of doing things faster, smarter, cutting down waste, cutting down costs, all the while maintaining, or improving quality. It has been one of the  reasons for Toyota’s rapid growth in recent years.

It works well when it is done correctly, but when it is done incorrectly, we see shortcomings, such as the Toyota recalls. However, this article is not about Toyota, it is about Internet Brands.
Let me illustrate. An engineering friend of mine sent this YouTube video to me the other week.  My question to you: How long does it take to build a 15 (fifteen) story hotel? Maybe a month? Well, take a look before you continue reading this article.

I sat there in disbelief. The Chinese built a brand new hotel exterior in two days, and completed the exterior four days later! In six days, the Chinese built a brand new, sustainable, fifteen story hotel, with minimal waste, all the while maximizing efficiency in both energy and construction. How? Through using brand new construction techniques and modular, prefabricated designed parts.

Certainly we can make all kinds of implications such as:

• We should be including time spend fabricating those parts into the total time lapse
• They had far more human capital available to help do the construction

Truth be told, we would be rationalizing and letting our pride interfere. What matters is the Chinese found a way to construct a brand new hotel with new methodologies that worked and it worked well.

So let me move on here, and please keep this in the back of your mind. I promise it serves a purpose. First of all, my arguments will be basically in response to Mr. Joseph Rosenblum’s Declaration.

Looking at item one, I see Mr. Rosenblum has conveniently left out his education information. Oh it’s true that it says he has a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters Degree from Stanford, but let me ask you this question. What is his degree in? Psychology? History? Computer Science? Management Information Systems?

After much digging, his LinkedIn Profile provided the information we needed. Mr. Rosenblum graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Modern Thought and Literature. His Masters degree is also in Modern Thought and Literature.

Just what is Modern Thought and Literature? According to the Stanford website:

Modern Thought and Literature (MTL) is an interdisciplinary graduate program advancing the study of critical issues in the modern world. Since 1971, MTL students have helped to redefine the cutting edge of many interdisciplinary fields and to reshape the ways in which disciplinary scholarship is understood and practiced. MTL graduates are leaders in such fields as American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Film Studies, Social and Cultural Studies, and Women’s Studies, as well as disciplines such as English, Cultural Anthropology, and Comparative Literature.

The Program trains students to understand the histories and methods of disciplines and to test their assumptions. We consider how disciplines shape knowledge and, most importantly, how interdisciplinary methods reshape their objects of study. MTL students produce innovative analyses of diverse texts, forms, and practices, including those of literature, history, philosophy, anthropology, law, and science; film, visual arts, popular culture, and performance; and material culture and technology.

Each student constructs a unique and rigorous program of study suited to his or her research. Students have focused on such areas as gender and sexuality; race and ethnicity; science, technology, and medicine; media and performance; legal studies; and critical and social theory. Our faculty is drawn from a range of fields in the humanities and social sciences, as well as from education, law, and medicine. As serious interdisciplinary study is impossible without a firm understanding of the disciplines under consideration, each student is expected to master the methods of one discipline and to gain a firm foundation in a second field.

Translation: It’s just a design your own major type program that allows you to focus on certain areas, and in likely case for Mr. Rosenblum’s, technology. However note where Stanford’s strengths lie in this program: American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Film Studies, Social and Cultural Studies, English, Anthropology, Literature, and Woman’s Studies. These are all humanities type courses. They are not designed to be heavy in the technical area. We of course, do not know what classes or courses Mr. Rosenblum took, however we can infer that while some technical courses may have been taken, there were not the emphasis.

In contrast, let’s meet the hypothetical Mr. John Doe, who graduated from a school with Bachelors of Science in Computer Science Degree and has a Masters in Business Administration. Stack Mr. Rosenblum and Mr. Doe for a technical job, and who do you feel is more qualified for technology leadership position?

Personally, at the end of the day, I feel Mr. Doe is more qualified. Why? It’s not because I’m the author of this article, but because Mr. Doe has been through a program with technology in mind and not a program which treats technology as an afterthought. The degree and education Mr. Doe has is far more comprehensive and rigorous  as there is an expectation to understand the theory, concepts and application behind technology.

Yes Mr. Rosenblum has worked twelve years in the computer industry, but that doesn’t mean he’s QUALIFIED to spearhead a project like vBulletin. A person could be working the helpdesk for twelve years and that is still working in the computer industry.

Moving forward to other points, I’m astounded at the broad level of accusations. For example, point ten.

During his two trips to California, I observed Darby involved in several conversations with Internet Brands and Jelsoft employees outside of meetings, and in their offices, discussing the vBulletin software.

The implication here made by the Internet Brands Vice-President of Technology Development is one that is simply astounds me completely. Mr. Darby talking to employees is reason to believe Mr. Darby committed theft of intellectual property? Has Mr. Rosenblum gone mad? Correct me if I’m wrong, but how do you expect anyone to work together to put together a program as complex as vBulletin without talking by verbal or written means? Does Mr. Rosenblum expect telepathy used? TALKING is necessary to communicate, facilitate and execute any given plan. TALKING is part of the job. Paranoid much, Mr. Rosenblum?

Furthermore, on item 13:

On June 19, 2009, Darby quit his job with Jelsoft. Because of Darby’s resignation and his central role with vBulletin software development and implementation, Platniff was NOT able to implement the new features as quickly as it had planned when Darby was on board.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but if that does not sound like a temper tantrum, then frankly I don’t know what is. The accusation here is again astounding. Internet Brands pretty said “it is all Kier’s fault vBulletin 4 isn’t what it is and that new features aren’t done.” Mr. Rosenblum of course, is conveniently leaving out one key fact. On November 2, 2009, Bob Brisco himself noted in this blog post on vBulletin.com that the number of vBulletin developers had DOUBLED. Do I hear double speak? You loose one man, but you double entire vBulletin development staff and yet you feature implementation is still slowed completely? Talk about inefficiency! Yes I can hear the critics saying that Kier was the lead developer, however lead developer means you spearhead and coordinate the efforts as well as project the vision. It doesn’t mean you are a better coder. Plus add to the fact there is more talent in the Internet Brands HR pool, one should easily make up for the void Kier left behind with three to four people. Internet Brands hired MORE than four people, with a significant number of them leaving for other opportunities. So it’s safe to say Internet Brands HR hired talented people and that they made it elsewhere. It’s also definitely to safe to say Internet Brands HR did NOT hire incompetent people. If they did, we need to bring out the “EPIC FAIL” stickers.

Let’s look at item 15:

At least 6 of the ideas, concepts and architecture for search engine optimization that were set forth on the “road map” on Exhibit A are currently being utilized in the xenForo bulletin board software

Excuse me Mr. Rosenblum, but exactly what are those “at least six” ideas, concepts and architectural designs? Would you care to share with the class? Your subsequent claims in number 16 are equally as vague as you’ve not detailed what was taken. As far as I’m concerned, you could have claimed “quick reply” and “lightbox galleries” as part of the vBulletin roadmap, all which have since taken root in different web applications as software.

Last but not least, point 17 is one I love personally.

Based upon my involvement in the computer industry for over 13 years (authors note: he’s now touting over thirteen years when in point one, he touted over twelve years. Reputation inflation?), my knowledge of the vBulletin software since 2006, my extensive background in computer programming for 15-20 years, and my review of the source code used in xenforo software, in my opinion, it would have been impossible for a software company of xenforo’s size to develop xenforo from scratch between June 30, 2009 and July 28, 2010 as stated by Darby in paragraphs 6 and 9 in his declaration in support of his motion. It took Jelsoft and VBSI more than 10 (ten) years to develop vBulletin to this point with Darby working on the project. The fact that Darby was able to program and release a bulletin board software program that included certain more advanced features than vBulletin in a mere thirteen months is a clear indication to me that xenforo and its programmers imply copied vBulletin’s code and spent the last year adding to this product the new features that were planned for subsequent versions of vBulletin.

Can I just say wow for a moment? I’m completely in disbelief at some of the broad claims here. So let’s do some dissection.

• Extensive Background Knowledge for 15-20 Years in Computer Programming – Call me the skeptic, but could someone please clarify his experience in programming? What is this extensive background knowledge? What does it entail? Does it entail 15 to 20 years of simply reading code? Being able to alter code to add in database information? Plus has Mr. Rosenblum ever heard of frameworks?
• Review of source code of xenForo – Question. When did you review the source code? How did you review the source code? Note Internet Brands launched a lawsuit far way in advanced before xenForo was ever released.

Last but not least, the fact Mr. Darby was unable to program anything under thirteen months and release it to the public. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but in Item 13, Mr. Rosenblum acknowledged that Kier that he was an excellent programmer and that because of his resignation, work slowed down significantly. We can safely assume here Mr. Rosenblum just admitted to the world that Kier is an excellent programmer. Yet here, Mr. Rosenblum just told the world that despite Kier being an excellent programmer, he can’t release a brand new forum application in thirteen months because Internet Brands can’t do it.

Let me tell you how they did it Mr. Rosenblum. They did it by using existing packages out there on the net that were open for EVERYONE TO USE including yourself. They chose the best stuff adopted by every community, including your own self proclaimed competitor: WordPress.

• Framework: Maybe 60,70% of the framework is from Zend. Everything in between is filled in.
• AJAX/UI: All utilizing JQUERY
• Editor: Tiny MCE
• Flash Upload: SWFUpload

What xenforo did was the same as the Chinese. Taking existing techniques, finding ways of improving upon existing packages out there and bring them together. Just like this article. The words itself are out there, but it takes someone to assemble them to make anything meaningful. They were being efficient.

Instead of wrestling with reinventing the wheel, designing brand new editors, new frameworks, they utilized what worked out there in the market and integrated the best parts into xenForo. All the while, Internet Brands was reinventing the wheel, while trying to roll the wheel when it isn’t ready.

Here’s why your items are not as sophisticated as xenForo Mr. Rosenblum: You’re wrestling with ten year old code. Rather than doing what all professional coders have said from day one and that’s to start off from a clean slate, you’ve continued to push forward with this agile methodology. Each time something new is introduced, it breaks something else. Your team is constantly spending time squashing bugs and introducing code to make sure existing functionality do not break. They are, to simply put, being completely inefficient with their time because the path you set forth does not work well given the nature of the beast. They are wrestling with something they should not have to. That clean slate was all that’s needed to give xenForo a significant strategic advantage over Internet Brands. Add new methods of doing things, and you have a killer product.

Sorry Mr. Rosenblum, but to me your logic doesn’t add up. You can say a fifteen story hotel can’t be built in a week, but rather it takes a month. The reality is that the Chinese built a brand new hotel in one week instead of a whole month; the reality is that xenForo was able to build a brand new forum in one year instead of ten.

As many of you have noticed, I’ve refrained from discussing the current lawsuit. I’ve also been noticeably absent given real life has taken priority due to the end of year audits. However, as the end of year has winded down, and my workload has been somewhat lightened, it is time to put the pen to the paper and write once more.

It begged the question what to write, and after considerable deliberation, I now intend to start a series of entries in respons to Internet Brands’s recent motions and filings in the United States Federal Court.

It is my understanding that there has been some responses by both sides, as well as customers and I will be echoing some of those very same arguments. Granted I’ve not read every single argument out there, I will acknowledge that there is a significant number of people who see the equally flawed logic and statements made by Internet Brands and their representatives.

And thus… the series begins.

I come to this with a different perspective (though, I think many of our conclusions are the same).

I started a small niche site that is not monetized (though, I do get a large volume of clients from my vB site). When I started (vB 3.x series, circa April, 2007), vBulletin was the best forum software that I found. I was (and am in many ways) a complete newbie. I had no knowledge about anything, had to learn how to ftp the files, do basic programming for some tweaks and was generally able to set up my site for my needs.

All of my updates through the 3.x versions were fairly pain free. With the modifications I found at vb.org, I was able to satisfy all of my needs.

I remember being so excited about each new release and remember the countdown to 4.0, like a little kid at Christmas. I was so excited by all the features, the CMS especially. My site was growing and I had great placement on google for all of my keywords.

Then everything went to hell. I had so many problems and it was really discouraging. I did feel ripped off by the new licensing structure and felt like the quality went down greatly.

Through subsequent releases, I had more and more problems. Things were broken and I had so many problems, it was greatly discouraging. Still, I felt optimistic that the vB team would fix things and I understood that upgrades would go through “growing pains.” I was glad to see folks like IBAdrian posting things that sounded right. I remember specifically a problem I had with the CMS that Edwin contacted me for on icq on the weekend and helped me fix. I was still full of hope at this point.

My later upgrades went horribly. Functions would not work as well as they did in 3.8.x, and it was really discouraging. Still, I was hopeful.

I sat and waited. My forum suffered some, but it was still okay, people were still posting and I was able to get by. I was feeling that I should just be patient and things would get better. I did see some of the early noise about XenForo, and thought I would keep my eye on it, but other than a general interest, that was it.

Then I read the post about the lawsuit. It pissed me off to no end. I was especially incensed by the threat (implied or direct, though, I felt it was a direct threat) against purchasers of XF. So, I bought a XF license.

What makes me so sad is what was once a great and vibrant community has become a negative place. I really feel for those vB employees who I am sure are working hard on improving this product (and props for the Iphone App that Adrian just posted about in his blog).

I also feel discouraged by the fact that my posts may be part of the negativity. I am not ready to give up on vB altogether, but it is a completely different feeling than I had when I first bought my vB license.

I don’t know exactly what I am hoping to say here, but I think it along the lines of beseeching the IB corporate folks to take a deep breath, look at what goodwill you still have, think about the message you send to your customers (present, past and potential) and just keep on working to make the product worthy of the name you have built. I think that Kier and XF have started something great (which I am supporting now), but this does not have to take down vB (or what it could be). Competition is not necessarily a bad thing. But, ignore your customers, act poorly, and fail to fix problems, and you will not survive.

I really hope this place turns around. I hope the vB employees and developers keep up their hard work (and that your bosses listen to what you have to say about how to fix things and resource you to make that happen…to be honest, I can’t imagine how tough it must be to work on the product with so much criticism…your customers are willing to cut you slack, so long as you have solutions and are upfront about what is going on and the plan; I have to say, the Jira roadmap and the progress on 4.08 do seem like you guys are working on the issues).

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents.

-jadmperry

Today has gone by so quickly I nearly forgot it was an important moment here at vBTruth. Today marks one year ago when Chronos and I said enough is enough. We’ve had it. We’re tired of being forced fed decisions by Internet Brands’s Management that ultimately compromised our communities and in some cases, have driven our members away.

Looking back at the entries we’ve written in the last year, I have to say I’m sad. Looking back at the entire year, I could cry. One year later, nothing has changed. vBulletin itself is no longer the king of forums. In fact, it is the court jester of forums. The monetary value of a vBulletin license is completely depressed. From an all time high of $285.00 license, people are dumping their licenses for a fraction of the price. I’ve seen licenses as low as $50.00 for a vBulletin 4 Suite. That’s an eighty two percent drop in the price. People aren’t even recovering HALF the money they paid for vBulletin 4. They are simply looking to get rid of it.

Looking at everything a year later:

The CMS is still horrible to use. It’s nothing but stress and headaches to post updates.

The Forum still shows regression in features.

Bugs are being squashed, but it’s still difficult to work

Performance of vBulletin is dreadful.

Competing products like Invision Power Board have made significant leaps in innovation.

We’ve seen xenForo

vBulletin 4 still has attention deficit disorder, with no idea of what it wants to be. Not to mention Internet Brands still thinks WordPress is still their biggest competition.

We’re already seeing talks that vBulletin 5 is coming out in a few months. HELLO $200.00/LICENSE IN RENEWAL FEES AGAIN!

We desired change, but we’ve seen none. No innovation. The v in vBulletin no longer means value or valuable. It now stands for victims. We’ve become victims of the lack of vision, and direction of Internet Brands.

So sadly, Happy Birthday to us. We thought a year is enough for things to change, but evidently time has shown us the truth. There’s no real change on the horizon.

I would like to believe that I am by far one of the most vocal people out there that has ranted, and raved about Internet Brand’s continued mismanagement of vBulletin Solutions, and vBulletin. My phone started vibrating like with extreme madness as I picked up a rash of alerts from colleagues and twitter notices on the morning of the filing. With my travelings these last few months auditing various companies, I’ve been regrettably away from this site and unable to comment or refresh content as frequently as I’d like to.

Now that my latest rounds of audits have been complete, I am able to properly sit down and analyze the highly publicized notice on vBulletin.com. Interesting enough, I have not been able to locate the complaint in any UK Legal Information System or any filings in the UK Court System.
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