Blue's Movable Type Blog http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/ Yet Another Test Blog: this one's a Movable Type one. en Copyright 2008 Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:38:45 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Yuku: KickApps Must Be So Proud Well what a surprise! Our closed ezboard was forcibly migrated to Yuku this weekend. And of course, weekends are when there's no technical support on Yuku or ezboard. Now given that I'm such an outspoken critic of ezboard/Yuku, you'd have thought they'd have been careful that the migration went smoothly, wouldn't you? Well maybe if you were anyone other than Yuku with their technical ability and commercial awareness anyway. The first thing you notice when you visit the board is that right there is a link to allow people to make payment to Yuku. That is despite our having closed the community chest when it was on ezboard, so it's clear that the settings weren't migrated like-for-like as they claim they should be. Either than or they're ensuring that every effort is made to make money off the newly imported boards despite the clear requirements of the board owners. No problem: I'm an admin. of the board (and listed as such), so I'll log in and turn the contributions setting to off again. Ah. No, I can't - as soon as I've logged in and return to the board, all I get is a completely blank page - no HTML or any code is loaded at all. Brilliant! Wait! Maybe it's just me they continue to have their petty feud with. So I speak to the board owner. He logs in, migrates his profile and ... completely blank page! Ah wait a minute: he upset them a bit once too. Never mind, one of the other admins can do it. So he migrates his account and logs in and ... completely blank page! Way to go Yuku. Oh and one other thing: I noticed that Yuku have renamed my account (and promptly banned it) like some kindergarten child would do if they were having a tantrum. I thought that KickApps were focussing on customer service? Apparently not: it seems like the Yuku staff are still the same bunch of also-ran hackers with the same petty agenda as they always were. KickApps must be so proud of their new acquisition... http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2008/02/yuku_kickapps_must_be_so_proud.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2008/02/yuku_kickapps_must_be_so_proud.html KickApps ezboard yuku childish fecktards fuckwits incompetence petty piss up in a brewery uesless vindictive Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:38:45 +0000 Yuku Sold: Confirmation at Last I revealed the news here, it's finally been announced that KickApps has bought Yuku/ezboard: it's their dirty little secret no longer! The annoucement mentions this:
"As part of the merger, a new leadership team is in place with a renewed focus on innovation and customer service. Rob Labatt, ezboard's former CEO, has left to pursue other opportunities."
Well they couldn't have set the bar much lower in terms of customer service, could they? And funny how they mention the departure of Robert Labatt in the same section about improving customer service. I wonder if the two are by any chance related? Still no mention of the sale on KickApps' own website but that San Francisco office address sounds awfully familiar...]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2008/02/yuku_sold_confirmation_at_last.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2008/02/yuku_sold_confirmation_at_last.html KickApps ezboard yuku ezboard KickApps Yuku Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:57:10 +0000 ezboard/yuku Sold and Labatt Gone the LinkedIn profile page of someone claiming to be Robert Labatt is to be believed. You will need to sign in or join LinkedIn to view this:
Current
  • Entrepreneurial self starter at Looking for my next great adventure
Past
  • President, CEO, Director at ezboard, Inc.
  • Consultant, Entrepreneur at Self
  • Research Director, Consumer Internet, Web Services
This part of his summary amused me:
"Most recently Mr. Labatt was CEO of ezboard, Inc. a profitable and growing network of consumer generated and white label enthusiast communities. During his over three year tenure at ezboard Mr. Labatt delivered the companies [sic] first profits, conceived and released the successful successor to the companies [sic] core community product and negotiated and sold the company to a strategic buyer."
Strange how he doesn't mention the loss of customer data whilst under his tenure. Nor the extended (and continuing) beta status of the software. So who is the mystery buyer? Well if you recall back in September, I mentioned the rumour of a sale to Kickapps. Whether they are the buyer of course is another thing as their web site is silent on it. Funnily enough, there's no mention of any of this on ezboard, Inc.'s web site or on yuku. I wonder if that's to calm the jitters about the move to the (still beta, still buggy, still un-priced, still ad. revenue selfish) yuku? Of course, all of this could be wildly inaccurate so I wouldn't necessarily rely on any of it.]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/12/ezboardyuku_sold_and_labatt_go.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/12/ezboardyuku_sold_and_labatt_go.html ezboard yuku sold out? Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:57:03 +0000 Those Forced ezboard Migrations... [sic] have been claiming that there are no forced migrations of ezboards over to yuku and that they have to be requested by board owners. If you recall, I mentioned this back in September. Now you should bear in mind that:
  1. ezboard, Inc. has yet to reveal pricing for ad. removal from yuku boards; and
  2. yuku is still in beta, which is the excuse they always trot out when somebody complains that something isn't working on yuku
  3. ezboard, Inc.'s Help Wiki still says "Do I have to switch to this next version of software? No, not unless you want to." and "Do I have to move my board to yuku.com domain? No, you do not have move to yuku.com."
Of course, being ezboard, it appears that the truth and the statements at item 3 above are mutually exclusive... Or what about this?
"Will my ezboard forum be switched over without my consent? No, boards will need to be switched by the admin. At this stage, they will not be switched over by our system if you do not initiate the switch."
So nothing to worry about then. Oh dear. "ezdollar", presumably someone working for ezboard/yuku, writes:
"My understanding is that they are now migrating some small batches of boards without the owner's request, but, a few days before migration, those boards should display an Important Announcement at the top of the board, stating that it will soon migrate. "If the developers had been able to write an upgrade for the ezboard program, it would have been sent out to all servers and no ezOp would have had any choice whatsoever about whether to use the new version or not or when to make the switch to the new version. The upgrade would have happened virtually (if not literally) overnight. This is really no different than a major ezboard upgrade, except that, in effect, ezOps have been able to choose to go to the new version early, and the upgrade is being done gradually instead of overnight. "Migrating your account to Yuku has nothing to do with board migration. "Having Gold or not having Gold has nothing to do with migration. "As I keep saying... if you have issues with Yuku, you have to take them up with Yuku staff by posting at Yuku Support or opening a Yuku Help ticket. We may feel your pain, here, but we simply can't help you with most Yuku related issues here."
So that confirms that they are indeed moving boards without the owners' say-so. And it makes no difference if they're Gold - with no ads. - or non-Gold. I bet gold communities won't be very happy when they start showing ads. ... which is due to happen soon, no doubt, as they have recently confirmed they are finally working on yuku versions of gold communities and ezsupporter which should be ready for testing "within a month or two at the latest"... So there you have it: forced migrations despite what they tell you elsewhere. Forced migrations from release code (if buggy) to beta code (very buggy and incomplete). What a way to treat your long-suffering customers! Oh and still no word on whether they plan to actually share revenues with board owners as ezboard, Inc. CEO, Robert Labatt, promised. And where is Mr. Labatt? Incredibly silent, even for him...]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/12/those_forced_ezboard_migration.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/12/those_forced_ezboard_migration.html ezboard yuku Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:04:16 +0000 Ya Snooze Ya Lose Internet Time. When Yuku was launched as being "available now" in September 2005, its unique selling point appeared to be the way ezboard, Inc. were promising to share advertising revenues with message board owners. In the presentation, ezboard, Inc. CEO "Silent Rob" Labatt is seen showing off the message board functions and user profiles that had been in development since early 2005. Unfortunately for them, they've since wasted all of 2005, 2006 and now most of 2007. The idea to combine message boards, user profiles, blogs and media hosting in one place was a good one even if not entirely original - most things on Yuku from ezboard, Inc. are ideas that someone else has had previously - as for instance WordPress can be extended with plug-ins and third party software to incorporate discussion forums, photo albums, etc. with the added benefit of an option to self-host the whole shebang and include advertising to generate a revenue stream as I do here. In June 2005, Yuku was being touted by Labatt as the next generation of ezboard (although the name 'Yuku' had not been unveiled at that stage). Inexpicably, they concentrated not on ezboard migrations or getting the message boards ready for users. No, instead ezboard concentrated on the user profiles no doubt spurred on by the growth of MySpace and indeed Facebook. But by doing so, they dropped the ball and simply became Yet Another MySpace Wannabe even down to the evident similarities in their Terms of Use. Of course, extended beta tests are nothing new, c.f. Google's applications and services, but then they are not usually quite this long for such products. So under the direction of Robert Labatt (and presumably with the backing of the venture capitalists led by his wife's firm), the development of Yuku has gone on and on and it's still in beta. In the meantime, however, everyone else has moved on. vBulletin is a very accomplished message board application and one I use myself for three different discussion boards and it's far better in my opinion than Yuku is. And of course there's now vBulletin Blog to go with the board software. I've already mentioned WordPress and its plug-ins capability. And now another major player has revealed online communities, blogs and social media in one place.
"Every member of your community can create a personalized profile page. Standard Profile pages include the following content: "Personal profile information, such as a photo, interests, or location information A list of comments submitted by that user and comment responses A list of recommended posts, forums, and comments by that user Forums, community blogs and a number of templates and skins."
All sound familiar? Well this is Movable Type Community Solution from Six Apart, the company behind Movable Type and LiveJournal. But for once they've copied Yuku and not revealed pricing (you have to get a custom quote)! So as time drags on and "Silent Rob" Labatt continues being elusive, maybe going for glider flights in Hawaii or going karting with the (small number of) staff, Yuku falls further and further behind the competition whilst not charging its users for the bandwidth and (reducing...) image storage.]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/11/ya_snooze_ya_lose.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/11/ya_snooze_ya_lose.html BlogWare Movable Type ezboard yuku lack of effective management lethargy moribund Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:41:29 +0000 Yuku Features and Security one support thread as nothing much is happening over at yuku (well, apart from staffers disappearing; the expression "rats leaving a sinking ship" spring to mind). Firstly, remember that one of the key "benefits" of yuku is "google friendly URLs". I see. Let's look again at that support thread's URL: it's http://support.yuku.com/topic/3493/t/--did----fix--wasn-t-broke----place-.html Somewhat different from the actual topic title of "So why did you have to fix what wasn't broke in the first place?" Now I wouldn't call that URL Google-friendly, would you? Secondly, have a look at this reply in the message thread, apparently from a user called Ben. Nothing untoward there? Now read this later reply:
"Well that's odd - I don't remember making that post up there (#17). Maybe it's down to bad memory on my part, but the time of the post is 7:18pm in my time zone - and I was NOT on the PC between 7pm and 7:35pm. What is going on?"
The answer? It was a yuku staffer logging in to that user's account and posting. Yes, isn't it reassuring to know that if your message board is on yuku or you have a user account on there, ezboard, Inc. can log into your account and post away pretending to be you without you ever being the wiser! Of course, compare that with, say, a vBulletin where as an administrator, I don't have access to a user's password (other than the ability to set a new one, but then they'd be aware of that). And given the documented antics of certain staff (and indeed, ex-staff), they're the last people I'd ever trust.]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/10/yuku_features_and_security.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/10/yuku_features_and_security.html spoofing trust Sat, 06 Oct 2007 11:34:19 +0000 Forced ezboard Account Migration and Advertising As I mentioned earlier, an old ezboard account of mine has been migrated to a Yuku one without my agreement and without my acceptance of any revised terms of use, etc. Interesting. Of course, the benefit of doing this to Yuku is that they can claim a larger number of users when trying to sell advertising - whether or not those users are actual, live and regular user accounts or simply dormant ones - and also serve ads. on the users' profile pages. Talking of which, I noticed that instead of the regular Google Ads block on a Yuku user profile, there was an ad being displayed for Justin Timblake's "Futuresex Loveshow", whatever that may be. Nice for all those users complaining about Yuku's classification as a dating site by corporate website content blocking providers. I also noticed that Yuku are once more using OASIS - "Open source Ad Serving and Inventory System" - rather than just the Google Ads they were serving. Maybe this is a precursor to their finally beginning to share advertising revenues with board owners, as Robert Labatt, ezboard, Inc. CEO promised at the Yuku launch. I won't hold my breath...]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/forced_ezboard_account_migrati.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/forced_ezboard_account_migrati.html yuku advertising revenue sharing Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:17:15 +0000 Another Unannounced Change at Yuku "so do we really have 1TB of image space?" adding that it sounded "ridiculously high, and quite misleading" which was my conclusion too. However, a Yuku representative replied, saying:
"I thought that there was not actually a limit... so I guess you could say 1TB. "I have no idea on the actual answer."
Excellent stuff... Another Yuku representative then relayed what she had been told:
"You are limited in amount of pictures you can save in a album, but you are allowed to make an unlimited amount of albums. So it really is nearly unlimited. "I believe we have the right to limit that at some point."
It fell to another Yuku user to provide the definitive answer to the question - she pasted in part of an e-mail she had received when her board was moved from ezboard to Yuku:
"In addition, we have added some new features: 1. Search - fast and accurate search that works 2. Free Image Hosting - 1TB of storage to host jpegs, gifts, bmps, pngs 3. Posts Don't Fall Off the 20th Page - unlimited storage of posts 4. Advanced Private Messaging - 4GB of storage for you, friends list, ignore list, mark as unread 5. Profiles With More Customization Options - (e.g. embed videos/music, choose from a list of ready-made designer skins, HTML blocks that you can edit any way you want, etc)."
[emphasis added] There are further examples of the 1TB storage limit being mentioned in this message board post. Now then, 1TB is 1,048,576 MB. So when someone apparently ran out of image storage, they raised a query on Yuku and were told that:
"Ok, it should be fixed now. :) "Log out and then log back in for it to take effect. You should then have 30MB of space for images."
[emphasis added] Only 30MB? Of course as the Yuku Help Wiki has been down for a while now, I cannot check there what limit there really is on image storage size. Fortunately, Yuku came to the rescue recently: an ezboard I once posted on has been migrated to Yuku and so that old ezboard account was migrated over as well - without my agreement, I hasten to add - and an e-mail (with the usual Yuku grammar errors) sent to me, telling me about Yuku:
"In addition, we have added some new features: • Search: fast and accurate search that works • Free Image Hosting: 30MB of storage to host jpegs, gifts, bmps, pngs • Posts Don't Fall Off the 20th Page: unlimited storage of posts • Advanced Private Messaging: 4GB of storage for you, friends list, ignore list, mark as unread • Profiles With More Customization Options: (e.g. embed videos/music, choose from a list of ready-made designer skins, HTML blocks that you can edit any way you want, etc)."
[emphasis added] Compare that to the details sent out in April 2007. Yes, ezboard, Inc. has reduced the storage allowance by a factor of nearly 35,000! Funny how they kept quiet about that...]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/another_unannounced_change_at.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/another_unannounced_change_at.html yuku Reductions Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:47:12 +0000 ezboard, Inc. - Where's Our Money? (Redux) http://wp.bluescrap.com/2007/07/04/ezboard-inc-wheres-our-money/ Well, within the last hour our community chest, which was finally restored at the end of July, has now disappeared again. From an e-mail:
"After reviewing the transaction logs I have reasonably determined that the current balance now showing is correct. So, as of 7/24/07 your board has a $443.00 balance."
Not any more, it hasn't...]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/ezboard_inc_wheres_our_money_r.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/ezboard_inc_wheres_our_money_r.html ezboard idiots money Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:39:12 +0000 Oops! They Did It Again! every single post from our Gold Community. Way to go, ezboard! We'll get our "ezOp" to request a restoration from the "Weekly backups and free restores [to] protect [our] board". We shall see...]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/oops_they_did_it_again.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/oops_they_did_it_again.html ezboard backups what backups idiots incompetence Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:04:05 +0000 Re-arranging Deckchairs on the Titanic ad infinitum. So I suppose that the news that they've started doing this on Yuku already - and remember, kids, it's still not finally released yet - should come as no surprise really. After all, they've been reeeeeaaaally slow over there for ages now, blaming users and indeed search engines for the treacle-like performance. Hey ezboard! Here's a thought: how about getting some servers and more connectivity instead? Oh yes, that would mean spending money...]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/rearranging_deckchairs_on_the.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/rearranging_deckchairs_on_the.html ezboard yuku ezboard server shuffle Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:27:04 +0000 Ideal Customer Profile a worried ezboard Gold Community owner asking about migrating to Yuku. What caught my eye was this:
"We just paid our Gold Community for the next year (it was about $1,200 for the year). We're really active and growing daily, and we hope to grow further."
And the customer's self-summation also caught my eye:
"I'm not a computer person, and don't understand much of the lingo that's kicked around these owner/administrator discussion areas."
And that is the perfect customer for ezboard, Inc. Why? Well I tracked down their ezboard Community, PaleoPlanet, and had a quick look at their community chest. They had indeed recently paid a whopping $1,121 for a year's Gold Community and indeed the board owner had topped it up by $121 just before renewal and there's presently $412 sitting there that they would never get back if they chose to leave ezboard even if it is unspent funds. Their daily posts statistics are similar to our self-hosted vBulletin board. The difference, though, is that our board doesn't have mimits on how many pages of threads there are. Oh there's also the slight difference in hosting costs: ours is around 10% of theirs and of course there's no comparison between the features our members enjoy and those theirs endure. So if any of their members reads this, do yourselves a favour and go to DreamHost instead and sign up for what is basically an unlimited hosting plan (in real terms) with none of that 20 page maximum nonsense at ezboard. And if you use the promotional code EZSAVE50 you can even get $50 off your first year's hosting. Go on! Give it a try! ]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/ideal_customer_profile.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/ideal_customer_profile.html yuku ezboard so expensive gullible Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:25:53 +0000 More on that Smooth Yuku Code Push "fantastically smooth release" when they 'pushed' yet another Yuku update? Well, amongst other things: Well if that's a "fantasically smooth release", I'd hate to see a bad one. Still, this is Yuku/ezboard, I suppose... ]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/more_on_that_smooth_yuku_code.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/more_on_that_smooth_yuku_code.html yuku incompetence smooth Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:24:25 +0000 Yuku Breaking Yuku Rules comes news that ezboard, Inc. staff are impersonating their customers by sending out messages apparently from community administrators:
"From: {board Admin} To: {user} {boardname} has moved to Yuku! Please check it out here! This was a community message from {board Admin} on {boardname}. {board Admin's signature}"
Now I can understand it if the Board Admins. themselves want to send out a global announcement to their members, but this was not one of those messages. As the aggrieved board admin. writes:
"I don't like being impersonated, even if the reason is benign"
Of course, a quick look at the Yuku ToU shows that impersonating another Yuku user (or indeed another person) is forbidden. So ezboard, Inc. are impersonating a Yuku user by sending out these faked messages and as we've already seen, they also pretended to be celebrities by setting up Yuku profiles in a pathetic attempt to attract traffic to their display ads. What a nice bunch of people.]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/yuku_breaking_yuku_rules.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/yuku_breaking_yuku_rules.html yuku do as i say not as i do Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:22:38 +0000 Deleted! ezboard hides criticism… again! as I reported here. Yes, try clicking the second link to "Worst Service Ever":
"The post you selected no longer exists. It may have been recently deleted."
You bet they want potential advertisers and investors to think the customer base is a happy one...]]> http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/deleted_ezboard_hides_criticis.html http://www.blues-crap.com/mt/2007/08/deleted_ezboard_hides_criticis.html yuku censorship criticism Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:19:59 +0000