Major Additions - iPhone / Android / webOS / WP7 / BlackBerry for vB - Tapatalk

** Over 23000 forums installed!!**


TipB 5 Stars Review: http://www.tipb.com/2010/09/28/tapat...ne-app-review/

YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWnkYF72nLE


What is Tapatalk?

Tapatalk is a vBulletin mod that allows your users to browse your forum using a native mobile application. Tapatalk supports iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, webOS and Windows Phone 7. It provides super-fast access to your forum and allows your members to participate more in your forum while on the go.

Why Tapatalk?

• Only one MOD installation to support all mobile devices including iPhone, Android, WebOS, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry.
• Forum API - build your own app or server-side integration with well-documented Tapatalk API, enjoy quality forum app from third-party developers, beyond what Tapatalk internal team can offer.
• Well-tested. This MOD has been installed in over 23000 forums, including some of the very large forums with 2 million members with over 10,000 online users. This app is designed to scale
• Tapatalk allows you to put your sponsored banner into the app so you don't lose potential revenue **NEW**
• Analytics support - you get too see how many users are accessing your forum from the Tapatalk app

Installation Instruction:

Installation is easy. It does not change any of your forum settings or overwrite any
of your existing forum code and configuration. Simply follow the procedure below:

Step 1

Create yourself an account at http://www.tapatalk.com/plugin.php. Once you have logged in
to the website, you can download the largest version. If you are not sure you are
using the latest version. Download a new one from
http://www.tapatalk.com/download.php. You can follow the rest of the instruction
from tapatalk.com onward if you want. Otherwise read on:

Step 2

Upload the zip package at the root of your forum system.
Unzip the package. You should see a directory called "mobiquo" inside your forum
system root directory. For example, if your forum URL is http://www.mysite.com/forum,
it should be placed at http://www.mysite.com/forum/mobiquo/.


Step 3

Login to Administration Control Panel (admincp) in your server.
Choose "Style Manager" under "Styles and Templates".
Choose "Edit Template" in your current template.
Click "Edit" in your current template
Choose "headinclude" in the list, click "Edit"
At the bottom of the editor, insert the following line:
<script type="text/javascript" src="mobiquo/tapatalkdetect.js"></script>
Click "Save".


Step 4

Visit http://www.tapatalk.com/addforum.php to enter your forum URL and upload you forum
logo there. It will allow end-user to find his way to your forum using the Tapatalk
app.

Step 5

Visit http://www.tapatalk.com/manageforum.php to confirm the setup so you can select
whether you want to publish your site to the public listing or you want to set it up
so it is complete private to other end users.

Screenshots:

Showing New and Unread Thread with Avatar and Number of reply:


Facebook Integration: Gather more members from Facebook by letting users publish topics to their Facebook feed.


Images are thread are converted to thumbnail and allow full-screen viewing


Ability to see Who's Online and what they are doing:


Ability to search by topics and posts:


Ability to place banners within the app:


Ability to upload images directly from Android and iPhone!:


Ability to view how Tapatalk is used via our Analytics console

[vbreal]

Originally Posted by AyeCapn

vbreal - the question is not of whether there should be a fee it is who should bear it. I'm firmly in the camp of a low-cost user app and no cost server app. I think they'll make more $$ that way since there would be more end users than forum admins purchasing something.

i know many iphone users and most of them hate paying for apps. most forum owners receive donations, use ads, or do subscriptions. 80 bucks isn't much to pay out of that pot of money. peeps flock to free apps, while alot of these same peeps shy away from paid apps. i think having he app free will help increase membership for our forums.

aye have you joined the support forum?

[meissenation]

I shy away from $5 apps but 0.99 or 1.99 for a decent app I'd be willing to pay for. I wouldn't mind if it was a $20 yearly fee on the server side and then $1.99 for the app on the app store.

[R1lover]

Just what I thought on page one..... using all of the members here to help develop this app so he can try and take advantage of the site owners with 80 per year lmao vb itself is not that expensive WTF are you thinking? lol

this is a big FAIL! until it's free for the server app and 2 bucks or less for the iphone app, that is if it ever get's approved...... they are only approving 3.0 version moving forward, so I hope you did your homework and made this work on 3.0? otherwise you have wasted your time as they will not approve it.

[R1lover]

Originally Posted by R1lover

A great app but it's worthless until you release the full app to post and reply...

Why do I feel there will be a catch to this one when it's finished?

Told ya so........... lmao I knew I smelled something stinky.... lol

[Coop1979]

Originally Posted by AyeCapn

My members are techies and probably would pay $2-$3 for a native iPhone app, particularly if they are members of multiple forums.

If you give away the server app you get more forum owners on board actively promoting the product. Once that happens they are marketing the iPhone app to a much wider audience who then buy it. If I pay $80 and get unlimited users you get $80. If I get it for free and promote it and get 100 of my 3500 members to use it you make $200-$300.

It becomes a simple marketing strategy - give away one part to get a larger return on the second part. The trouble you have now is you've got it backwards.

100% agree,

[dvsDave]

Originally Posted by AyeCapn

If you give away the server app you get more forum owners on board actively promoting the product. Once that happens they are marketing the iPhone app to a much wider audience who then buy it. If I pay $80 and get unlimited users you get $80. If I get it for free and promote it and get 100 of my 3500 members to use it you make $200-$300.

It becomes a simple marketing strategy - give away one part to get a larger return on the second part. The trouble you have now is you've got it backwards.

Disagree. I honestly think to make this a sustainable service (that's the key word here), an $80 yearly fee is not absurd at all.

Before you go and hit the quick reply button, hear me out. Let's say this see's some serious adoption by vB forum owners and YellowCoder/Winter has to add more servers to keep the service up and running smoothly. That's an expense that has to come out of the fee's for the software and we haven't even talked about hosting/bandwidth expenses (assuming a co-lo setup).

Also, when you talk about an iPhone app, keep in mind that Apple takes their cut off the top too! Those 100 installs at $2.99 doesn't exactly translate into $299 profit. More like $200. (apple takes 30%, + $100 a year for developers)

That's also assuming your top 2.8% of your 3500 members, 1) have an iPhone, 2) would by a $3 app for your site.

That's a big IF.

[dklassen]

I'm a serious vB forum owner. I own several forums with around 14,000 total members and I take them all very serious. This is not a hobby for me.

I won't pay $80 a year each for my sites. The server side needs to be free or most vb owners won't get on board.

In order for this to be successful, its implementation on the server side needs to be wide spread throughout the vb community. With a yearly fee it won’t be. Doesn’t matter if the app is free, if there’s limited sites that participate on the server side the app is useless. I realize it’s early in the game but none of the sites I regularly visit are in the list and I doubt they will be anytime soon.. maybe never, so therefore the app is useless to me. If the server side was free you would have way more forum owners jumping on board and promoting it to their users which translates into app sales.

[Coop1979]

Originally Posted by dvsDave

Disagree. I honestly think to make this a sustainable service (that's the key word here), an $80 yearly fee is not absurd at all.

I've got to disagree with that thought process. In order to create a sustainable service, you have to have a business model that is built on continuous growth. The list of sites that will use this service will top out pretty quickly (esp at $80/year). However, the number of users on these sites will continue to grow exponentially.

I've got probably 500 users on my site who would purchase this app immediately for $2. That's over 12 years worth of $80 fees for me to use the software.

Think it through.

[dklassen]

Take it to the next level. I too have a % of members who would for sure buy the app for two bucks. But as a forum owner I’m not going to pay for the service so no one on my sites most likely are going to buy the app nor am I going to market the app to my users.

The chances are pretty high that none of the other forums my members go to including myself are going to ever be on the list. Most forum members don’t randomly surf community sites. They are members of specific sites and only those sites. The chances of those sites being on the list are slim to none given the vast number of forums large and small that are out there. Thus the app is totally worthless.

If it’s free for the forum owners, you have many more that will jump on-board and in fact market it as a feature of the site. Again, if it’s free for the forum owner they will add it as a cool new feature and promote it to their members translating into not only more app sales but most assuredly a broader range of forums available.

I’m a regular member of probably twenty sites but I’d be willing to bet not one of them will pay for the service if I requested it. If it was free I’d be willing to bet most would gladly provide it for their members which again translates into more app sales.

There is no way this program will ever succeed unless it has wide spread application in the vb community and most forum owners simply won’t pay for it. Thus it renders the application almost useless unless the specific forums you visit are on the list which is unlikey.

[Wseries]

You can put me down as another forum owner who is not interested in paying $80 a year for this. I hope the developer reconsiders otherwise a lot of hard work will be for nothing IMO. Besides, wouldn't it be better to charge for the app? I would happily pay $5-10 for this app on the app store. Registered forum users would outnumber actually forums quite substantially I would think?