Profile Feeds function like Twitter + VB 5.x redesign Feeback

[katie hunter]

Profiles Feeds Discover like Twitter (A new Vision, not just a feature)

http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBV-12337



Hi~ I know VB 5.x still has a lot to do in term of adding back vb 4.x core features and the stuff that are missing in Vb 5.x but has this been proposed before and discussed among VB team web developers and Web designer ?

The way I look at Vbulletin is that i want to see it bring a new vision with a deep user experience, something unique and new in the forum market relative to making sharing and communicating between your friends and members deeper.

So what i mean by this, if you look at Twitter "Discover" feature, it helps you find new friends, followers, pictures, news, and so on and they make good use of hashtags # and @ feature . We as forum owners, chooses a certain niche and what our forum would be about, but how can you deepen the experience of sharing relative to this niche.

What i really love to see is for VB to provide a feature like this, we all know Vbulletin is a forum and a forum is about discussion, discovery, and making friends but why not deepen this experience by providing a "Discover" feature which displays your friends and/or followers feeds + based on your likes and posts, it can provide you with new feeds. So a mock up of something i am personally working on my site would be this, this is just a draft to get the idea

http://i.imgur.com/HesyR1M.jpg

Redesigning Vb 5.x

The other thing is that i see VB 5.x design isn't very pretty and appealing, I would really love to see VB 5.x make good use of interactive design. Have you taken a look at Behance and the innovative web designers on it? https://www.behance.net/

For instance, sleek designs now days have an auto scroll under the header like IGN http://www.ign.com/ , make good use of interactive design

Profile redesign

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/member/868-wayne-luke

The way i see Vb 5.x profile looks, is not very appealing at all, it looks really bad and i would have to say Vb 4.x profile looks much more appealing but for the sake of adding new and enhanced future features, why not renovate the profile design to something like this below, and making the background gray, today's modern style is a mix of light background with the use of black, gray and blue colors.

http://i.imgur.com/Y35g860.jpg

Designs like these would look very appealing and providing room for features such as a timeline. See the video, i don't agree with everything on this design but you get the idea.

http://vimeo.com/56488043

Another thing that i didn't like is if i went to a user profile ex http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/member/868-wayne-luke and tried to look up an image on the media tab, i find the design is really bad with these weird popping up images when hovering on them.

Something like Google+ is more appealing https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Phistars/photos see when you click on an image you can comment on it, I also have that on my homepage which works with both animated images and non animated ones , ex image tab and when you click on an image, you can comment on it and tag your friends

Have these ideas been brought up for VB 5.x ?
Are they considered for future features ?

[tbworld]

Great post @katie hunter. I believe this is the correct orientation for the product too. My corporate team, (I run a corporate board), has concentrated solely on integrating with outside social services and media. as a corporate experiment. The only downside I have so far is the maintenance hours required to keep up with the ever changing API's.

Our employees have loved the changes, it makes them feel that we are up-to-date with the web. I had real concerns about opening our site up for fear of leaking corporate secrets, but it turns out our employees are well behaved and it is not an issue. Instead we have gained some great ideas and exposure from friends of co-workers on our products.

I am looking forward to VB5, positioning the product for the new market place is going to be crucial for some of it's success.

[katie hunter]

Thank you :0)

I personally see it that we, we've spend like 9 years so for this instance, VBulletin making a forum software, we already have a feeling of what a forum is but now we are in 2014 and we can't just redesign the forum software over and over without innovations, we need new ideas and exciting features, ideas which makes sharing a powerful and exciting tool and i wouldn't be surprised to find Google loving forums like these to crawl. Google is all about information and data that are shared. Now days they are implementing algorithm which targets Twitter mini blogs/posts based on re-tweet and favorite - so they aren't only caring about blogs and topics with 2 - 3 paragraphs of txt and hyperlinks, they are targeting information that might be important to share and make it easy for the user to find them.

When it comes to sharing, people in general love to be provided with tools which make sharing exciting and easy.

And if VB grabbed this chance, it will be the first in the market to grasp those features for a forum software.

[tbworld]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

Thank you :0)
And if VB grabbed this chance, it will be the first in the market to grasp those features for a forum software.

I am sure the concept is not lost on them, but the way the market has changed so quickly hast to have caught them off-guard, as it did many of us. Actually, they did a pretty good job trying to roll-out a mobile app and Facebook app, along with the mobile style and Facebook connect. The problem is the man-power to keep everything a float and up-to-date is excessive. I am sure they were hoping that third party developers would jump on the bandwagon. Developers I am sure tried, but soon found that trying to keep up with the fast pace of social media apps and trying to make a product that would recover their cost of the time was turning out to be unfeasible with a descent return of investment.

Interesting future. Appreciate the conversation.

[ozzy47]

Really what you have to do if running a forum, is find a happy medium between forums, blogs and social networks. Neither one will ever be the other, but if you can cohesively combine them, you will be doing good.

Forums are like social mixers, where everyone is at equal level, milling about and discussing with others. These many to many communication tools allow anyone to start a topic and anyone to respond to one. Members are often at equal level, and content is usually segmented by topic. (rather than by people).

Blogs are like a keynote speech where the speaker (blogger) is in control of the discussion, but allows questions and comments from the audience. They are journals often authored by one individual, and sometimes teams. In the context of business communication, these are often used to talk with the marketplace and to join the conversation that existing external bloggers may be having.

Social Networks are like topic tables at a conference luncheon. Ever been to a conference where different lunch tables had big white signs inviting people to sit and join others of like interest? It’s like that. Social networks allow members to organize around a person’s relationships or interests, rather that just focused on topic. People that know each other (or want to meet each other) will connect by a variety of common interests. These are great tools to get people of like interest to connect to each other and share information.

It’s important to know the many different tools in your tool chest as every type of accessory fulfills a different need. Before you jump to tools, you should first understand who your community is, where they are, how they use social technologies, and most importantly, what they’re talking about.

[tbworld]

Good point, well said.

[katie hunter]

Here is a new mockup : ) direct link to the image http://i.imgur.com/q6z7j81.jpg High resolution



The new Jira ideas that I have, are shared here

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum...-5-suggestions