Interview with Lawrence Cole - vBulletin Operations & Marketing Manager

[robbiefritz]

He just made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. The arrogance with which he came across with originally didn't help matters. As others noted, I don't like the guy. Just what vB needs, a used car salesman. (That is what he puts me in the mind of.)

 

[phoenixdown21]

I would love to hear what a non-vbulletin customer thinks of this interview?

I still do not feel any degree of confidence that the vb team has a plan to rectify the issues on the table and pull out of the slump they're in.

I give them credit for expediting the bug fixes after two years, but it seems too little too late in some respects.

 

[IcEWoLF]

I have nothing but love, but I wish there were more comments than simply "no comment"
That's all I have to say.
vBulletin needs to be more open to the public on where they are going with the product.

With the current state of vBulletin there are hundreds of people looking to go to XenForo because they are making something innovative where vBulletin is still working with the core software.
I think vBulletin needs to be re-build from ground up.
Let the vBSEO guys handle their SEO. CMS is horrible for SEO.

 

[BamaStangGuy]

I am kind of surprised this site has stuck around vBulletin so long. Much less still be on vBulletin 3.7.

 

[Panupat]

I am kind of surprised this site has stuck around vBulletin so long. Much less still be on vBulletin 3.7.

I'd be more surprised if TAZ changes to vB 4

 

[ENF]

I think his primary job is/was? to try and quell the negativity and try and push for more product sales, given the emails he's sent out were purely marketing ones.

Sadly, it doesn't seem to have worked to well for him, since his immature blow up against that Lizardman guy, he's been a LOT quieter.

His blatant disregard for maintaining professionalism in those threads & posts ruined any first impression I would have had. Now, I could not respect anything he has to say while representing vBulletin.

Certainly, someone above his pay grade gave him a good yank for those indiscretions. I believe his selection to have replaced Adrian, was a poor decision.

 

[we_are_borg]

Lawrence just sent me some responses to the questions he didn't originally answer.


========================================


What are the concerns being voiced by customers which you consider to be valid?

"We don't discuss our forward product development planning."

Thats because they do not have any idea whats going to happen after a month. A good well organized company can say whats going to happen in a weeks to 6 months time and how it is going to be.

What changes have taken place since you joined the team?

"One of my top priorities has been expanding the technical support team. We’ve added both stateside and international tech support staff to continue offering what many consider to be the best support within the forum niche."


What are the issues that need to be addressed next?

"We don't discuss our forward product development planning."

Thats because they do not have any idea whats going to happen after a month. A good well organized company can say whats going to happen in a weeks to 6 months time and how it is going to be.

note: its better as no comment but it all comes to the same. Maybe its time IB hired people that are competent enough to work as manager.

Do you have any comments on the change in pricing structure that came with vB4?

"I do not. However, there are tons of pages of discussion on that in the forum if anyone wants to refer to them."


Why have so many vBulletin staff members left recently, and what does this mean for vBulletin customers?

"Contrary to popular belief churn has actually been down. Additionally, we a have some great new additions to the team."

Well they lost many people in a years time. They need to hire people else they dont have enough staff any more.

In retrospect, what if anything could have been done differently to improve the development of vBulletin and reputation of Internet Brands?

"I’m much more concerned about the future and the exciting product work we're doing."

If he does not take in account what happened when vB4 was released till now you will make the same mistake again. You need to learn from the past to look into the future.

 

[euantor]

I would love to hear what a non-vbulletin customer thinks of this interview?

I still do not feel any degree of confidence that the vb team has a plan to rectify the issues on the table and pull out of the slump they're in.

I give them credit for expediting the bug fixes after two years, but it seems too little too late in some respects.

Well, it's certainly not filled me with confidence and wouldn't make me even think about buying a license. The guy was reluctant (at best) to answer any questions about the future developments for the software and I'm afraid that if I buy a license, I kind of want to know what's going to happen with it during the time I own it.

 

[AdamD]

They have made some positive steps recently to address concerns, like outstanding issues/bugs, which have been in their "Jira" for a long time, plus going back to the old "versioning" (Think that's the right term), for minor/major releases.

But still, it's kinda overshadowed by the fact that VB5 was already in the planning/design stages a year ago, according to Adrian, so it doesn't seem like it's worth investing in VB4 right now.

If VB5 isn't something ground breaking and written from scratch, I can't see the VB brand lasting for many more years.

 

[steve10]

I think VB has to be groundbreaking if it wants to stand a chance of retaining (or rather getting back) VB's status as the most used paid forum software.

 

[esquire]

I think VB has to be groundbreaking if it wants to stand a chance of retaining (or rather getting back) VB's status as the most used paid forum software.

Stick a fork in VB. Now that the company has blown probably closing in on a million dollars on a frivolous lawsuit, they have been nonstop trying to sell premium products to customers to get some of it back for more terrible decisions. VB 5 is just an excuse to get the customers to pay for improvements made to their own forums that compete better against your own forums. They didn't upgrade their own forums to VB 4 and won't because it's terrible. VB 5 will be more of the same and probably an upgrade to their forums where parts will make their way to the customers. Poor decision to move forward with this as a poor man's Internet Brands forum product.

 

[Panupat]

What's Jira ?

 

[Lycaon]

Jira is the software vBulletin use for bug tracking.

 

[LeadCrow]

What's Jira ?

An issue tracker used for submitting issues and suggestions in place of vb's old project tools.
Rather very inconvenient, improperly organized so theres a lot of dupes and neglected easy fixes/improvements (classified "trivial" as in "don't give a damn"), and issues and their status can't be browsed offline.

 

[Naviero]

I haven't paid much attention to vBulletin since it switched over to Internet Brands. I did at first, but I've realized its gone downhill fast. After reading through this interview, plus the extra comments, I don't think I've ever touch vBulletin again. I did, at one point, have a 1 year license, which has since expired. (It was around for vB 3.6) I considered renewing it when 4.0 was discounted, but after trying an admin demo, I'm severely disappointed that the ACP remained the same as in the 3.X series. Honestly, if vBulletin really wants to gain more customers, I think they need to re-work the software from the ground up. As someone else pointed out, XenForo is being innovative. Even IPB, which I was never too fond of until vB went down the shoots, is managing to do something new with each and every version. It's impressive how they've stayed on top of their game, yet vB which has so much more resources now, can't manage to keep themselves together.

 

[robbiefritz]

His blatant disregard for maintaining professionalism in those threads & posts ruined any first impression I would have had. Now, I could not respect anything he has to say while representing vBulletin.

Certainly, someone above his pay grade gave him a good yank for those indiscretions. I believe his selection to have replaced Adrian, was a poor decision.

Funny you mention that. Those replies put the final nail in the coffin for me in regard to any sort of respect that I may have been able to muster. What he failed to realize from day one was that the ill feelings expressed throughout the hidden forums were a result of company performance and I think is safe to say, weren't personal.

 

[Gladius]

Good to get written confirmation that vB is still going downhill fast, with only occasional slowdowns in the process. It certainly made my decision to convert to XF much easier. I've wasted years (and money on the suite pre-sale) waiting for the new overlords at vB to get their act together but I realize now that it's hopeless. There hasn't been even hint of an attitude change from IB or even much of a realistic acknowledgement of the situation that vB is in. Feature-wise, XF is nowhere where I need or want it to be. But vision-wise, it's light years beyond vB which is drowning in incompetence and bugs that seem to be the company preoccupation pretty much since IB took over.

Oh, hi all.

 

[IcEWoLF]

I've been thinking about switching to XenForo for a while now..
I am a bit tired of vBulletin...their product is dated even with 4.1.x.
XenForo has been very revolutionary and looks like old devs (vB.org) are moving on to XenForo since the product is much more exciting.
vB5 will be more or less the same thing as vB4. It will not be re-written from the ground up.
IB is being cheap a****s. I hope they can turn this around.
They are losing clients by the day.
The licensed feedback suggestion section = horrible. (see Jasper interview).

I don't think Lawrence Cole is the guy to blame here, more like IB, I am sure they are calling the shots.
I am sure he is saying what he was told to say.

Living proof: Theadminzone.com has not upgraded to vB4 from 3.x.
I wouldn't be surprised if they switch over to XenForo sometimes soon.

 

[robbiefritz]

I've been thinking about switching to XenForo for a while now..
I am a bit tired of vBulletin...their product is dated even with 4.1.x.
XenForo has been very revolutionary and looks like old devs (vB.org) are moving on to XenForo since the product is much more exciting.
vB5 will be more or less the same thing as vB4. It will not be re-written from the ground up.
IB is being cheap a****s. I hope they can turn this around.
They are losing clients by the day.
The licensed feedback suggestion section = horrible. (see Jasper interview).

I don't think Lawrence Cole is the guy to blame here, more like IB, I am sure they are calling the shots.
I am sure he is saying what he was told to say.

Living proof: Theadminzone.com has not upgraded to vB4 from 3.x.
I wouldn't be surprised if they switch over to XenForo sometimes soon.

Try xenForo's demo if you haven't already. I got rid of my vb4, have one site on vb3.7 and four others on xF. It just keeps getting better.

 

[AdamD]

Xenforo is blessed in a sense, because it isn't held back by redtape, corporate (aka pointless) meetings, decisions and worst of all, share holders

So stuff gets fixed and fast, not to mention it seems to have been written from scratch, by veteran experts in the field

I mean, there's only 17? Open (Known) bug reports right now

http://xenforo.com/community/forums/bugs/

And when you compare it to Vbulletin...lol, which has about 1000 bugs, probably more and that product has been out for two years? heh

Vbulletin is just a cash cow, I mean they seem to be spamming people on twitter now, with:

"We want to thank you for your support on vBulletin 4. Check out our official vBulletin Twitter at http://xxxxxxxxx"

regardless if a person is using VB anymore or not, lol

There really doesn't seem to be any hope for VB and I can only imagine they recruited this Lawrence cole guy, because he's probably the only one who can try and milk people for more money, given his "Xtreme marketing" background.