Obviously you are a great guy, but have little knowledge about intellectual property. Let me ask you, how many trademarks do you hold? What is your professional experience in brand development and management?

If you had a brand,would you like people to change the look and feel of the brand without authorization, even without a trademark?

If you actually had a brand you developed, and you spend spent years developing it, you would know exactly what I am talking about :banana:

"Burst my bubble"... I'm ROTFL over such folly ... All I do is speak the facts based on years of experience and lots of money paid to IP attorneys :D

( just look at the copyright at the bottom of your forum pages, and Jelsoft's fees to have that one little notice removed.... )

I'm sorry but I still do not see where you are going with this. noppid is not breaking any law here by using the word vB on his site. vB is not a registered trademark and noppid is entitled to use it as he wishes in whatever context he wishes. Can you please explain yourself because from your first post in this thread it seems like you're talking utter nonsense... No offence intended :)

The above post explains things quite nicely.

This post is the correct view.

Sorry, but if you guys don't understand this statement, no offense, you are either not in business or have no experience with brands.

As filburt1 kindly pointed out, you should refer to Jelsoft products and anything related to their products as vBulletin or vB... not VBulletin, or VB, etc.

And again, if you have a question or doubt, simply ask the Jelsoft business office what *they* would prefer. vB and vBulletin are Jelsoft's brand, not yours nor mine.

:banana:

This is pure conjecture. Show me a case to prove your statement. No one is going to regulate a keyword or conversation relative to a trademark or tradmarked product. It's been tried just recently with google adwords campaigns and is expected to fail in the courts.

Nice try though.

You are, interestly enough, looking at the words used on a web site and then twisting your distortion of a brand into a Google key word discussion.

We are talking, or at least I thought we were, about a web site that refers to vBulletin as VBulletin. I am not discussing Google ad words and key words, and neither was the other poster who is also commenting (or at least that was my interpretation).

In fact, I though we were discussing this site:

http://www.vbwebmaster.com/

and their use of the phrase VBulletin v. vBulletin and also their use of VB v. vB.

So, it seems we are simply taking past each other.... oddly enough, or we are IP Einstein's trying to explain IP branding 101 to folks without experience in intellectual property rights and branding (sorry to repeat this, theme).

Neo

I should have rephrased my original post (still kindly, mind you);
If it is a matter of not willing to change the numerous references in graphics and such, I would argue that the effort required falls far below the resulting professionalism.

To further re-iterate my point, noppid can't possibly be infringing any laws/trademarks by putting VB instead of vB. It's his forum, he can do what he likes with it :) I mean what more is there to say about this? It's his choice if he wants to do so, I personally wouldn't but there you go :)

Well I participate, It's Joe's. We just happen to hang out alot and talk about the same things. He thought a place for folks like us would be cool. I think so too. There is alot of room for growth and we can't be everything to everybody I guess.

Anyhow, for me it was about variations to catch the eye in this discussion. If a webmaster can't see past marketing to particiapte in quality discussions, then that webmaster probably has nothing to contribute.

Marketing and advertising are hard work and it works. It's easy to dismiss if you don't do it or understand it.

I think Unix is trying to say that by establishing vbwebmaster.cominregards to vBulletin itself (the prime utilization of the softwarebywebmasters) it should associate everything relative to Jelsoft anditsbrands as accurately as possible. For example, you would notaddressMicrosoft Windows, and Microsoft Window (I know in this case itsamissing letter, but its the same idea), the term Windows is abrandestablished by Microsoft, and people refer to it as so.

Another similar example, iPod. I address it as iPod as that iswhatApple has created. It has created the brand iPod. It's a name, andwhenyou refer to iPod you refer to it the way Apple has projected it.

Something like this, is like a person's name. My name is Arunan,mindyou if it was written as ArunAn, I would expect to be refered to asso.

I think, instead of trying to substantiate your reasons touseVBulletin, you should use a basis of common sense, and refer toaproduct as it was titled by the developers.

Now, let me take another tone; I am not telling you to do anything,itis just my view on this topic, and your opinion to use VBulletinisyours, I see it as wrong, you see it as right...you are freetocontinue using VBulletin, but when you associate yourself withanotherbrand, the common thing to do is take on its entity as it hasbeen set by the creators.

Furthermore, I guess your point (or the person who createdVBulletinWebmaster) of trying to look past the name for the content isa very unique way to approach it...but I guess to maximize your traffic(if I read properly, traffic is your main purpose) you have to do whatthe users like and wouldn't mind.

You might want to look at it this way, by keeping it at VBulletin youwill get a handful of members, whom do not mind at all the way you haveit, and like your content, but changing it to vBulletin, you will stillgain that same handful of members who wouldn't of minded the VBulletinvariation, but you will then set your self up to attract alot morewebmasters who are very thorough of the vBulletin brand.

You don't loose much by changing from VBWebmaster to vBWebmaster.

Actually, it is just the opposite of what you state. What "catches the eye." for some of us, is that you have little to no respect for Jelsoft, the vB brand or the vB community. That is what "caught my eye". You asked for an opinion, so be please be collaborative enough in your replies to at least respect the opinions you get from experts in the field (and not call them nonsense, LOL.).

In addition, you might consider reading the current literature on the concept of "Business Ecosystems". There is a lot of literature on this subject and to summarize the context here (vis-a-vis vB):

vBulletin is becoming (or is) a large business ecosystem of developers and users, based on the open nature and vision of Jelsoft and vB. The brand of this ecosystem is important because the brand identifies the *community*. All of us benefit from the ecosystem and the branding of the ecosystem, just like a well balanced lake is a healthy biological ecosystem.

So, here we are, we are patiently explaining to a poster, who asked for an opinion, about two important concepts in business, namely (1) branding and brand identity and (2) business ecosystems.

If this thread continues, we will be soon be talking about cooperative agents, cooperative game theory, markets, and economics, LOL. The posters will end up with an honorary degree in net-centric architecture and business ecosystems in an information economy, laughing out loud, if we keep this up for a few weeks or months!

Instead an on-line masters degree course work here, let's close with the concept of "community". The community is identified by vB and vBulletin, and not VB and VBulletin. Please respect the community and be a part of it, and help keep the vB ecosystem healthy.

Thank you.

Neo