Blue's Movable Type Blog

Well, the silence continues.

Still no updates or code pushes mentioned in the ezboard CEO WordPress Blog and no apparent sign of Robert Labatt since 9 May 2006 on Yuku. Perhaps it's taking all his time to come up with his hour's presentation scheduled for tomorrow night, being "the Communities Expert" he is. Apparently.

So let's just have a recap on where they've got to with Yuku, shall we?

1. Shared Advertising Revenue.

Well, despite ezboard now admitting they run "adult" advertising on some of the ezboard network (as ezboard apparently has trouble selling "normal" ads. on its "adult" boards), there's still no word on when, how and what proportion of the advertising revenue generated by Yuku boards will be shared with the board 'owners'. Let's not forget this was supposedly Yuku's USP and why Yuku would be "better than free".

2. Yuku Charges.

Putting the advertising revenue sharing to one side now, there's still no definitive pricing structure available for potential Yuku board owners to see when making their decision as to which message board system to choose. Likewise, Yuku hasn't announced the pricing for its ezSupporter equivalent either.

---oooOOOooo---

And now ... timetables!

a) 13 March 2006 CEO Update

"During the next two months we will help you move your board over and build custom board skins."

Does anyone know of any regular, public, non-development ezboards that have been helped over to Yuku? I certainly don't.

"In the next few weeks there will an easy to follow board migration process available in Yuku."

No yet, there isn't.

b) 14 March 2006 CEO Update

"We are on a weekly development release calendar with Yuku. Every Monday we release new code and bug fixes."

Of course, this might still be the case, but reading the lack of updates on the CEO Blog itself, Labatt's Yuku Blog and the Developers' Blog it doesn't look as though much is being done.

c) 19 March 2006 CEO Update

"We expect that ezOps will be able to copy their board over nearer the end of April."

It's now May 23rd...

---oooOOOooo---

So, it looks as though ezboard/Yuku has missed out with all the timescales they're quoted thus far, excluding the real biggy: being ready for "prime time" during 2006 (fabulously inexact that).

It'll be interesting to see if all the promised features are actually available when it comes out of beta...

Posted by Captain Blue at 7:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All quiet on the Yuku front. In fact it's very quiet; quiet enough to have started the rumour mill concerning ezboard's CEO Robert Labatt. His last CEO Blog update was on 28 April 2006. Likewise his blog update on Yuku. If you care to take a look at his wonderfully-named Yuku profile page at http://rob.u.yuku.com you'll see he was "last seen" on 9 May 2006.

As I mentioned in my earlier post over two months has passed since Labatt wrote that ezboards would be helped to migrate over to Yuku. But in their usual fiddling/Rome burning way, all they've really done is messed about with user profiles by the looks of things. Speed - or a chronic lack of it - is still a very real issue. No sign yet of formal pricing either for non-advertisement Gold status or for the newly announced ezSupporter version of Yuku (mind you, they've announced it but appear not to have any concrete ideas on implementation: "...more information as we figure things out over the coming weeks". More accurate timescale forecasting then, eh Rob?

And of even more note is the complete silence on how they plan to share advertising revenue with Yuku board owners. The USP of Yuku and why they claimed Yuku was "better than free".

The hardcore ezApologists meanwhile are all still talking Yuku up, saying it's still in beta but is going to be great when it's finished. I'm thinking of building a spacecraft of my own which will not need fuel to power it. It's still just a doodle on a notepad, but hey! It'll be great when it's finished...

Mind you, given ezboard hasn't managed to implement any advertising on Yuku to gain revenue, I suppose the users can be forgiven for getting something for nothing. Those who've bravely sought to try out board customisation on Yuku in preparation for The Great ezBoard Migration are finding out that whilst the Yuku developers are making code changes, it's probably a waste of their time as the object classes change names thereby making CSS changes pointless.

I wonder if Labatt will still be speaking as a "Communities Expert" at a dinner at Maya in San Francisco on 24 May? Might be worthwhile showing up to hear him speak and ask him some questions...

Posted by Captain Blue at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

More bizarre activities over at Yuku.

Take another look at one of Labatt's earliest CEO WordPress Blog entries:

"Until then, you are welcome to try Yuku and move your board to Yuku any time you want."

Except now they're making it a tad more difficult for the ezboard faithful to try Yuku:

"currently ezboard names and email addresses associated with them are reserved.

"Originally you could register with your ezboard name and or email. But that was before the block was put in place.

"so they will need to use a new email address (hotmail, gmail, yahoo) something free works fine - and then register."

So the ezApologists will have to register and set up a new e-mail account, set up a new Yuku account, continue to monitor that new e-mail account whilst you spend time learning how Yuku works (and it will be a lot of time as I've found Yuku painfully slow) and then, after all that, when the fabled ezboard to Yuku migration happens it'll all be for nought if they want to actually use their migrated ezboards.

Truly bizarre!

Posted by Captain Blue at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ezboard repeatedly missed the deadlines they set for themselves after their May 2005 data loss.

Business as usual then, with their new replacement product, Yuku.

On 13 March 2006, ezboard's CEO wrote in his WordPress Blog that:

"During the next two months we will help you move your board over and build custom board skins. Later you can click a button and your board will automatically move to Yuku - archives, threads, members, banned users and all!

"In the next few weeks there will an easy to follow board migration process available in Yuku. We will update this page with new information when the migration process is released."

In just a few days, those two months will have gone by. Remind me, how many ezboards have they helped move over to Yuku? All or them? No. None of them? Probably closer. And what about that board migration process? It's gone strangely quiet, hasn't it?

Posted by Captain Blue at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Towbars

Anyone who saw me, Blue Rex and the trailer at any of last year's trackdays will know I was using Mrs. Blue's Fiesta to do the towing. This was because I drive an ancient Mondeo ST200 that Ford hadn't seen fit to get rated for towing, so my local Ford dealer wouldn't fit a towbar. Note that every other Mondeo was rated, just not the ST200...

Last summer, I was chatting to a neighbour who'd had a nice demountable one fitted to their Ford Galaxy, so I rang the place he'd had it done - Broadland Towbars near Norwich - and they said it could indeed be done*.

So on the 20th, I went to their place for 3½ hours whilst they fitted a rather nice Brink "Brinkmatic Classic 2506" - this involved some cutting of the rear spoiler, but it's not really noticeable unless you're looking for it specifically. It's demountable so when not in use the ball section is stowed away in the boot and means the lines of the car aren't spoiled. It takes less than a minute to fix and demount the ball section as well. Cost was £310 + VAT fitted.

So this year, I have my car to drive with all the toys and comfort and more space for crap my useful stuff in the boot. Marvellous!

*Apparently, the Mondeo ST220 is straining its clutch as it is, so if you try towing anything it breaks...

Sunday 23rd

Loaded Blue Rex onto the trailer, hitched it up to the Mundane-oh and headed for Castle Combe in Wiltshire with Extreme Towing... Stayed overnight at the Crown at Giddea Hall which was comfortable and not too pricey.

Monday 24th - Castle Combe Trackday

The day started misty and drizzly which is bad, but I was at the circuit early for noise scrutineering. The circuit has a tight noise limit so they check the noise output of your bike. I'd already fitted a decibel killer to the Akrapovic system but had taken along my OEM end can and a specially made adaptor to marry the can up to the Akra headers. Amazingly, I didn't need it as the bike got through first time.

I decided to finally break out the PVC... Yes, my Respro SLICK Racing Wet Weather Suit actually got some use, over a year after I bought it. I had to get my wardrobe assistant (actually a guy called Ian from the ZRX Owners Club) to help pull it on for me over my leathers which, like all of them. has all sort of padding (and hence ridges) at the shoulders. Couple that with the Respro being tight to start off with and it's not a job you can easily accomplish by yourself, especially if, like me, you have a shoulder that dislocates itself at the drop of a hat.

I looked like this (click on the thumbnail for an intermediate-sized version):

As the morning progressed, the track dried out and it was a slightly less cautious Blue who was photographed (again, click on the thumbnails for the intermediate-sized versions):

and

If you look closely at the first of those two images, you can make out the video camera.

And here's some footage:

My onboard footage (camera slightly loose + floppy screen = shaky stuff)

Onboard footage from the guy on the white CBR600 which overtook me

All in all, it was a good day. I did have to leave immediately after the first afternoon session though as Mrs. Blue was working in the evening and I had a coaches' meeting for our football club to attend. Still, more extreme towing and I was home in a trice.

Posted by Captain Blue at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, well, well. There's been very little movement over in Yuku-land over the past couple of weeks with the only apparent changes being some tinkering with user profiles and the replacement of "charisma" with simply postive/negative voting. Looks like there's been a charisma bypass there...

So no important news about the much-heralded advertising revenue sharing - remember the DEMOfall presentation where Labatt bandied a figure of $3,000 to $5,000 per month being made to Yuku board owners - which appears to have been quietly dropped.

Now, advertising is the life-blood of companies offering free services to people. ezboard currently offers free boards that display adverts (with monies going to ezboard). They also have their Gold Community product where no ads are displayed but the board owners pay ezboard on the basis of ezboard's claimed page views. And finally they offer individual users an ad-free experience in return for $12 a year which they call ezSupporter. This last product means that anyone buying ezSupporter doesn't see ads on any ezboard and board owners of Gold Communities don't get charged for ezSupporter page views either.

With the move over to Yuku, the ezSupporter was being dropped. This brought howls of anguish from ezboard's customers especially as there was no gain in terms of any announcements about advertising revenue sharing either. ezboard users didn't want to see ads and board owners saw that they'd be likely to be paying more due to the lack of ezSupporter page view credits (although it should be noted that ezboard still hasn't released pricing for Yuku).

So imagine my surprise to find that ezboard's CEO, Robert Labatt has made a U-turn in his latest WordPress blog entry:

"After a groundswell of questions and requests for ezSupporter to be continued in Yuku, we have decided to offer ezSupporter in Yuku. I am not sure what we will call it, but it will deliver an ad free experience for those of you who want to subscribe to the Yuku version of ezSupporter. I’ll give you more information on this as we figure things out over the coming weeks."

Wow! That's a significant change and I'm not sure how they'll implement this in Yuku (unless it's only in relation to users and not boards). But given the DEMOfall presentation, what will happen to advertising revenues? Well maybe Yuku/ezboard is discovering that potential advertising revenues won't be as much as they'd hoped?

Interesting then for me to read a posting in another Yuku/ezboard-watch message board by a user the other day:

"No one seems to question the basic premise of sharing ad revenue. Has anyone put it to EZB to explain exactly how much volume will produce how much shared revenue? And who are the advertisers buying YUKU these days? EZB wasn't worth diddly (flat out refused by some) to most advertisers when they had huge volume. YUKU needs to be pretty big if they're going to sell any decent paying ads.

"I asked a buddy of mine who works for an ad agency where the money would be most likely found. He laughed in my face. I'm still trying to find out what the economics of internet advertising look like, but it's pretty complex.

"The one thing I have found out is that YUKU is a joke to advertisers, most likely. MySpace has become toxic to most, and the "me too's" out there are basically dismissed.

"My 2 cents.

"BE"

Interesting times...

Posted by Captain Blue at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)