I was thinking, has IPS ever thought of this? Like, a package of all ipbs features with like 100 bucks off or something if you buy it all together, you know, something of that sort?

I would love that. Like downloads, blogs, gallery, ect. Is that what you mean.

Yea, like all the features they offer including copyright removal and the latest IPB version with a discount,

иэvo , the IPS suit package is already exist.

Where is it? I don't see it under new purchases.

http://www.invisionpower.com/community/purchase.html

How about: everything, FOREVER, unlimited support forever for like $$$

Forget to pay 500$ for all their products for unlimited support. I really don't think they will do it.

That's all.

They tried that with IPB once before. $199 for unlimited support and upgrades.

It's not economically possible. There is a point where a customer costs more to retain than they paid in the first place, and that's when you get degraded service.

Yep its just like hosts that oversell you get less and less support.
I do have a life time License though and got it back when they offered it.
I still have to pay for the blog and gallery though.

You mean you don't have to pay for IPB updates... ever?
I contemplated buying a lifetime IPB license back in like 2004 or 2005. I really wish I had done it.

Yep I do not have to pay for updates. But I also have the blog which I do have to pay for.

Correct. We don't pay for support or upgrades. Unlike new customers, we even have phone support included (however unlike new customers, we don't have an SLA on our support agreement)

Not to sound stupid but whats an SLA?

I think a lifetime or if you have over X options be allowed to get into a bulk package and then just pay one renewal fee and have the option of getting no support but just pay for upgrades. Half the times I needed support it wasn't an issue with IPB it was a messed up server configuration or a modification triggered something. I don't even have IPB upgrade my board - I do it myself.

So that $25.00 I am really paying for is just so I can get updates. And $50.00 a year is really steep. I know we have IPS Resources now, and 3 is in development, but still a better solution needs to be found.

And allowing license transfers between active customers only! Thats another topic I have to start...

Ah ok thanks.

It's nearly impossible as regular upgrade and support fees are where most companies earn money from

I am glad that page as a: 'How Do I Save Money?' part, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to suss the saving. Well, I could always add up all the service costs /etc but ...I am so unlikely to do that.

They once had a sale, offering upgrades for yearly licences to lifetime was something I took advantage of.. must of been 2-3 years ago.

That would be nice, yeah.

I miss the old licence options, they were exactly like vBulletin's with one small difference.
vB had a yearly and perpetual licence, but you still had to renew each year for upgrades, the only advantage of vB's perpetual licence is that you can continue to use the software when the support/upgrades expire. vB's yearly licence, if it expires, they require you to delete the forum software.

IPB had a yearly and perpetual licence, both gave you perpetual use of the software, unlike vB. The perpetual one had the advantage of perpetual upgrades. I can see why they removed that licence option, but it was a major saver considering that I have never needed IPB's support.

The Community Suite is nice, and considering that for most of my Standard Licences, I have a matching Gallery and Blog licence, I would prefer the option of converting some of those into community suite licences... to reduce the renewal costs... but at the same time.. as with any good piece of software, I'm happy to support it.

Huh? ...The standard license allows you to continue to use your IP.Board Software (you do not have to remove it).

I think to make blog system free is the best option to go because IP.Blog is far far behind most FREE blog systems out there

our MOST FAQ
Q1: Why we cold not change logo/header while facebook and myspace is do-able?
Q2: why so few themes to choose while even free wordpress have so many free templates to pick up
Q3: give me 3 reasons to use your blog instead of yahoo's blog

The community blog is NOT a replacement or a comparable product to, for example, Wordpress. It is a different approach to blogging, and as such will not function the same.

Still, (1) will likely be addressed, (2) we have no real control over (though Rikki has indicated he'd like to make a few themes to help people get started once he has time, and (3) ...Yahoo has a blog?

I can't see the blog free. Well...maybe. Paying for updates is paying for a peice of their time to update it.

thanks for this, but if so, may I know what IP.blog is mainly for on your plan?


For us, we have a forum and try to encourage members to use Blog embedded to gain stickness

If blog is not comparable, why they will use this? This is a very serious and "practical" question

If you sit down and think about how the two are used it becomes a little more apparent.

When a user goes out and signs up for a Wordpress blog, it is an individual blog. He is the owner, he is the author. He runs the blog, which is the whole site in this instance. As such it is a natural order that he should be able to control it's finer details: the layout, the content on the blog, and so forth.

IP.Blog is a community blogging system. While we try to, for the natural sake of familiarity and conformity, give members a little place all their own when they create a blog (i.e. the newly introduced themes feature, the custom headers that can be auto-generated, and the content blocks), it is still a blog created within a defined community. The general idea would be that the blog would have something to do with the community, or be a part of the community.

The member does not own the site, you do. As such, there is a fine balance that must be struck between what a member can do and what a member can't do. For instance, different admins want a member to control a layout to different extents. They may want a member to change the font color for instance, but not change the background color. They may want a member to have full control over the look, rather than just be able to control aspects of the look. And there is always the issue of security....this is a very critical and difficult thing to take into consideration when you are giving members this sort of control. On your own blog, you're not going to hack your own site. When you allow members to create and customize a blog on YOUR site however, it's easily possible a hacker could register and put nefarious content into CSS or content blocks (if javascript were allowed) that could damage your entire site.

As such, there are different goals and different considerations that are taken into account. In a Wordpress blog, the user owns the entire site - in IP.Blog, the user owns a very small piece of a larger site, and this makes all the difference in the goals.

I thought the same too and believed this is your original idea

However, did you really go to dig the practice? Let me share this info to you

We run a forum that is the laggest site in certain field in our country.

Our market penetration rate is like 90% already.

However, if you go talked to our members and ask why/how they setup blogs, things just turn out differently from what you planned and thought.

people who want to have a blog always want to own a small "independent" land, land belongs to them solely. They want to "own" something and not to live under someone

So, you start seeing people share their travelling experiences on their own blog and don't post it on forum, all because blog is their "own" place..


Also, facebook is a good example, it is like a huge coommunity and each people has their own profile/blog page with tons of functions and "independence" from others.

It has been a trend for a long time that due to technoiogy barrier is breaking down, more and more people like seting up their "own" place (myspace too), just like everyone wants to have a house. Forum system is breaking down little by little.

Don't over estimate "community" or "Familiarity".

In reality, there is NO "loyalty" on net, see what happens to yahoo now and re-consider to GAIN "independece" of forum members's blog system seriously.

Again and finally, do you think members use your blog due to familiarity or community sense and sacrifice "owness" and"independence"? answer is NO.

and sorry to say this, but check your own blog system
http://forums.invisionpower.com/index.php?autocom=blog

Then you willl see what I meant...

I didn't say people DON'T use it for their own discussions.

What I said is that the blog "lives" under the site - it is not independent of the site and there is no way to make it independent.

When you start allowing certain things, security precautions need to be considered. Even the theme support can be dangerous for administrators who are not familiar with the fact that things like expressions and behaviors and -moz-binding can be used in stylesheets to inject javascript into the page. What then?

There's more to it than you see at the surface, and while I can understand everyone has their own vision, the blog was not meant to be a pure wordpress replacement in any sense. That's all I was trying to explain.

well, answer to this is simple and I could answer for our members

"really,? then let's go use fackbook/blogger then, they dont have security issue"

Your plan is what you plan, but is it really reflect to reality? You have to stand on client's shoes

and all of your explaination is all like "it is not wordpress like", sound like you are even not sure what your blog is mainly for...
You also said agani it is not wordpress like, but ignore the part of that your blog "have to" compete with all blogs system in the world from "clients' aspects"

go check your own blog again and login facebook to see how they do it and "try" to get closer. All of individual profile/blogs there "under" one big community

I know your technology skill is not on the par with them, but not hard to learn some from them

I love blog exactly how it is. It is a community integration tool, it is not, to me, meant to be the community builder. Blog is meant to pull people more together, just like Gallery. If you feel that others sites are more what you are looking for why don't you inform your users to use them?

As a CLIENT, and a user of IPS services on multiple other sites I have absolutely NO problems with the way Blog is now and am only excited to see the enhancements from here.

"why don;t we inform members to use others??"
of course we want all of our members to STAY with us, reality feedbacked are "they do NOT want due to lack of functionalities, and many of them are even considered basic features"