Interview - Matt Mecham of Ibforums

Is Ibforums similar to Ikonboard in any way, such as the coding structures or programming guidelines? What new features do you plan to implement, or have already implemented, in Ibforums?

Nearly all bulletin boards are the same at a fundamental level. Most allow registration, log in, search, help, posting, moderation and administration -- it's only the implementation that's different. Ikonboard was coded in Perl and Invision Board is coded in PHP -- for this reason alone there cannot be any direct code similarities. PHP is a scripting language, it has a preset number of tools to do a job; does this mean that all scripts are the same because they use these tools? Obviously, the answer is no. For example, there is only one way to connect to a MySQL database in PHP; this means that all bulletin boards written in PHP that use a MySQL database must share an almost exact line of code -- how could you copyright that?

A product is a sum of all its parts, if you start breaking it down into routines and code structure, you'll find that it's the same as any other PHP script -- it can't be significantly different when the coder is restricted to using the limited tools a scripting language provides. Aurora was a bit messy when I left, and its final feature set hadn't been decided. Invision Board allowed me to start over again, and the experience I gained in using MySQL during the Ikonboard 3 development meant that I could write a much more efficient program this time around. Ikonboard's MySQL database structure was very messy because of the self-imposed limitations that iDatabase (a proprietary database abstraction layer) created.

Although Invision Board may have started from the seed that Ikonboard planted, it's grown into a completely different product that stands on its own merits. Invision Board's new features are all based around usability. I feel that we've got the point of feature saturation, which leaves the end user a little cold and confused. I'm trying to develop an easy-to-use product that has solid, powerful features for administration and moderation, whilst retaining good usability for the end user.

Zef Hemel, the creator of YaBB, is now helping Ibforums. Can you let us know how you signed Zef up to help with the Ibforums community?

When I was at Ikonboard, Zef was a very active and capable poster in the Coding forum -- always willing to help out and offer his extensive advice when it was required. His name was put forward by a team member as a potential moderator. After a brief discussion it was decided that he more than deserved an official post because of his hard work in that forum. I was not concerned about Zef's other activities or that he started YaBB, one of our competitors at the time, as I knew Zef well enough to trust that he'd always be objective. When we left Ikonboard to start Invision Board, Zeff followed -- and his hard work continues. He's a great asset to the team.

At this point I can't really say what the future holds. Invision Board v1.1 will probably be the last development cycle that I do on my own, as all future versions will be developed within a team. I'll still be very actively involved in coding the board, but it'll free some of my time up to work on other projects we have in the pipeline, such as our CMS/Portal hybrid plug-in that's in very early stages. If Zef wanted to be involved at a coding level, he'll definitely be on the short list of potential candidates.

Are you facing any challenges at the moment from other forums, especially as you now have Ikonboard as a major competitor?

I have to say, Ikonboard is a hard act to follow! But I've always maintained that competition is a good thing, as it brings about rapid developments in technology. When you consider that a forum script is nothing more than a database and a bunch of HTML forms, there isn't much more you can do until Web technology advances, so all we can do is build on existing ideas to make them more user friendly. Ikonboard, Invision Board, UBB, vBulletin, phpBB and YaBB SE have all introduced neat little ideas into the "feature pool" that we all draw from. If there was only one forum script in existence, the feature pool wouldn't be as buoyant as it currently is.

A good example of how competition advances technology in a forum script context is the humble private message notification pop-up. If I remember correctly, vBulletin was the first to introduce the idea that when a new private message was received, a little JavaScript dialogue box popped up to inform you, making it very easy to note when you had a new private message. phpBB took this idea and built on it to create a HTML page in a pop-up browser window. I took that idea and built on it further by adding more functionality to the HTML page -- it's highly likely that someone else will develop this further, continuing the cycle. The biggest challenge Invision Board faces is getting across that just because you can download it for free, it doesn't mean that it's not as good as the products that charge. I feel that given time, Invision Board will prove this on its own merits.

Netmag.co.uk recently recommended Ibforums as one of the best free forums around. Has that helped gain more popularity and converts from other forums?

.Netmag is one of the most popular printed Internet magazines in the UK. I was rather amazed to see the feature in print, and naturally pleased that Invision Board came out on top. It's definitely helped us "sell" Invision Board to potential customers -- you can't get much more of an independent review than one in a magazine. I think that all the systems reviewed benefited from the exposure that printed material gives -- as the saying goes "there's no such thing as bad publicity". We did note that we had a lot more calls from the UK after the magazine was published.

At the moment, you're also offering paid services, including paid support, installation and copyright removal add-ons. Are these services in high demand? How does your paid support different from your normal support via Ibforums?

Invision Board is free, so to secure Invision Boards future, we have launched these paid options and separate services from the parent company, Invision Power Services. Our support team work around the clock on both free and priority support tickets. We pledge to answer all free tickets within 24 hours and priority tickets within 12 hours -- in nearly all cases we beat those times by a large margin. Our priority account holders also benefit from direct telephone support and access to private support forums within the public support board, to request support or just to get questions answered promptly.

We already have a growing number of clients taking up the paid-for option, as it gives them complete peace of mind with their Invision Board. Our team regularly logs in and solves problems for our priority customers, which saves valuable time when support is required. And our installation service is always in high demand. Invision Board is easy to install, but most Webmasters would rather concentrate on content than installing complex scripts that power their site.

The Parent company, Invision Power Services, also offers other services besides Forums, such as hosting and Web development. Are these tied with the forums in any way? Do any of these services drive traffic into your other offered services? Can you tell us more about your "hosted Ibforums" service?

Invision Board is just one department of the Invision Power Services business. Our main services include Website design, custom scripting, and hosting (from forum hosting through virtual hosting to dedicated hosting). Our forum hosting package is very popular. Unlike some of our competitors, our package is "real" hosting: you get your own allocation of Web space, your own Invision Board, your own database and FTP access -- it's not simply a "custom" Invision Board powering several installations. You're free to add modifications to the code and do pretty much all that you'd expect to do on a regular virtual hosting plan. The forum hosting servers that we own are all fully optimized for Invision Board, offering the best possible environment for the board.

The relationship between Invision Board and Invision Power Services is closely tied. Invision Board is maintained by the revenue that Invision Power Services generates and Invision Power Services is able to reach a large audience because of the traffic that Invision Board generates.