IP.this, IP.that., Invision Power Board, IPB, IP.Board, yadda yadda

[Dave Baker]

I love the product. I love the service. I hate the confusion caused by all the darned "IP" names and the inconsistent use of them.

Pretend I'm not familiar with the company or its products but somebody says "Invision Power Board is practically the major reason PHP is so popular on the web," so I Google it and am taken to a site called invisionpower.com to check it out.

Now on the home page, I see that Invision Power Board is referred to as "Invision Power Board" at the bottom but then there's a tile ad on the side for something called "IP.Board." Hmmm. Wonder if that's the same thing.

But what's "Invision Power Services" up at the top? Hmmm. I guess that's the company that makes Invision Power Board; the Corporate and Homepage links seem to be active over there in the left-hand nav bar. But why is the URL invisionpower.com? I thought, after somebody recommended the product to me, that "Invision Power" was the name of the "Board."

Oh well. I read the page. "Invision Power Services is one of the world's leading providers of community solutions. Some of the worlds largest companies have chosen IPS software to power their online communities, as well as countless thousands of small to medium sites." Who is "IPS"? Is that the "Invision Power Services" people. Hmmm. Whatever.

Well, let me click on this "Learn More" link under "Invision Power Board." That's what I came to find out about. Looks pretty straightforward.

Eeek, I'm now taken to something called "IPS Community" ... the URL is community.ipslink.com/board/ though ... what's ipslink.com? Holy Toledo, I am confused.

OK, this page talks about "bulletin board" and "message board." I wonder if that's the same thing. Anyway, I press on, hoping to find out more info about what I thought from my buddy was called the "Power Board."

Well, towards the top of the page there's a big graphic about IP.Board 2.2 (I guess that's Invision Power Board, which I wanted to Learn More about), so maybe I'm good to go.

Where do I click to see what the message board looks like? "Free Demo" takes me to a page where I can "take it for a spin." Damn, this is something I need to sign up for. Oh, I see, it must be talking about the administrator controls and back end of the thing. I don't want to go that far; I just want to see what the message board looks like. I'll go back to the previous page.

Hmmm... still no joy; after looking a second time I still don't see a link to see a demonstration of what my jilliions of actual prospective users would see. Where's a "Screen Shot" link? But I'll try "IP.Board Features."

Aha! A screen shot! But it's small and fuzzy. Maybe there's a link on this page to see an example of the board... nope, don't see anything.

I am just about to lose patience and decide this is a company that doesn't seem to Get It. I'll use my browser to get back to the "Corporate" tab and start again.

Well, here's a link to "Company Forums." I'll try that, even though I expect it's some kind of internal "forums" for employees only -- I'm on the "corporate" page, after all.

OK, here I am... finally a real live message board. It says "Invision Power Board" up top, even though a bread crumb says I'm in something called "Invision Power Services." I notice a button above it, called "IPB Portal." I know what a portal is, by gosh. Is that the portal/main page for IPB, or IP.Board or Invision Power Board or whatever it's called, which I'm looking for? Nope. Eeek; I don't know where this IPB Portal link has taken me; I'm using my browser to go back to the previous page.

OK. Let's just sit at this page and look at the board. I'm impressed. Great layout.

OK, next step-- I know about the company, I see the product, but what's the support like? I don't see a link to support. Maybe it's this forum called "IPS Company Feedback"? Click. OK, now I see a subforum called "IP.Board." Click.

Now I get a page with a note -- it says I can get help in a customer area -- sounds great -- or that I can get "peer advice" at something called "IPS Beyond." Holy cow, is that another company? An affiliate, maybe? I am going to get "IP.Board" support at "IPS Beyond"?

At this point my brain goes "sproing" and I turn off the computer to get a cup of coffee. Maybe I'll try to figure all this out later, or have another look at phpBB or some other open source solution.

[Luke]

Where I do agree that things can get rather confusing around here, one could easily deduce that "IP.Board" stands for "Invision Power Board". The board is on of the company's first products... The second was called "IP.Dynamic", which is "Invision Power Dynamic", a content management system... The "IP." part of the name seems cool, I guess, so they deciding switch all of their products that way.

There are three add-ons to Invisoin Power Board: A blog, Gallery, and download system (not attachments, but a file management system for organizing downloads).

The "IPS Community" thing is a package where you get Invision Power Board, the blog, and gallery (not sure about download system). As a package I guess you get a better deal.

For support I believe there is a support section on the main site (from here click "IPS Home") where you would login with your customer account and use the ticket system. "IPS Beyond" is a resource site for 3rd party modifications and add-ons... You can also get support there if your issue falls outside the scope of support. This would be issues with custom modifications or skins.

[Coastie]

I agree with the OP, I miss just plain old 'iB'

[Tonia M. Bartz]

Thank you so much for your honest feedback. It has not gone unnoticed.

If there is anything that I can clear up for you, please let me know.

[Quillz]

I think the reason IPB is now referred to as IP.Board is to prevent confusion with IPS.

[Brandon C]

I agree with the original poster in the fact that the inconsistencies in this needs to be addressed as far as product names are concerned, because it may be confusing for first-time users.

[MC--]

That's nit picking. >_<

[Rikki]

Dave,

Thanks for your feedback. I've reworded some of the homepage to keep a consistent use of IP.- rather than 'Invision Power' when referring to products, and I've also gone through the site to ensure the product is referred to as 'bulletin board' rather than 'message board' or 'forum'. I agree that the ipslink.com domains could cause some confusion, so that's noted, but isn't something we can change instantly unfortunately.

Regarding our company name... Officially we're Invision Power Services, so I think it's important that's clear on our homepage. However, throughout the rest of the site we refer to ourselves as IPS since that's how we are known more generally. I personally think it's clear to site users that they refer to the same entity, given the context.

I'm aware there's a lack of visual content for the products on the site, and this is something I had already noted down to improve when we work on the next phase of our site :)

[Jaggi]

heres me thinking IP stands for internet protocol :P.

[Black Prowler]

heres me thinking IP stands for internet protocol :P .

my sentiments exactly! :lol:

Seriously I agree with the first poster.....I was amused by his post while at the same time in agreement to what he was saying. This whole IP business is rather tedious and boring and totally strips the meaning of what Invision Power Board actually is. And as the last poster mentioned it confuses IP Address (which most of us know about) with IP. Board (and the other IP products.) ....cmon now!!! You guys couldn't just stick with the original name or just call it IPB for short as we have done for years now....all of a sudden the whole concept changes to IP.Board??? :blink:

Personally I think IP.Board, IP. this and IP.that, etc is a boring and ugly name for superior products...it's like you are hiding what it actually is: Invision Power Board. Seems like someone got lazy at the naming convention and said 'let's skip the extra letters and go with the shorter more confusing name....and let's add a . in there to make it more unsightly too! :lol:

IP on the internet means Internet Protacal.......should I refer to my board as the Internet Protocal.Board from now on? :unsure: :lol:

please go back to Invision Power Board and IPB...make everyone's life simpler....making the title simpler just made things harder for your new customers and more annoying for existing ones(even if it's only myself :unsure: ) ;)


I dig the new board but I just hate the new name I have to see in the copyrite and IPB support forums, etc. :blink:

[stobbo]

I personally like how it is IP.Board, IP.Blog, IP.Gallery and so on, it looks better to me :/

[Matt]

We've evolved from a single product company into a company that has many different products, sub-products and services.

It would be far too verbose to use: "Invision Power Board: Blog" and "Invision Power Nexus" continually. With that in mind we opted to shorten it to the following syntax:

InvisionPower.Product (example: IP.Board)
InvisionPowerProduct.ModuleName (example: IPB.Blog).

This allows us to retain a single syntax naming convention across all our product and sub-product lines. For example, if we were to sell a module for IP.Nexus, then we'd call it IPN.Module.

I understand that there is some minor confusion due to our evolution but that's part of the process. I don't think too many people are confused by the interpolation between "IPS" and "Invision Power Services" or "Invision Power Board" and "IP.Board". Acronyms are pretty much everywhere and we're used to seeing them.

We only really use "IPB" when talking about Invision Power Board in posts on this board. Rikki has mentioned that he's going to clean up the verbiage to make sure it's consistent.

please go back to Invision Power Board and IPB...make everyone's life simpler....making the title simpler just made things harder for your new customers and more annoying for existing ones

That's just not a viable solution. What would we call the blog module for IP.Board? "IPBB"? It just gets more obtuse and confusing. IP.Converge becomes IPC, IP.Nexus IPN and IP.Dynamic IPD - I can't see how that's any clearer. :)

[UBERHOST.NET]

Now I see why some of the budget restaurants have pictures of all the food, lol.

[Dave Baker]

It would be far too verbose to use: "Invision Power Board: Blog" and "Invision Power Nexus" continually. With that in mind we opted to shorten it to the following syntax:

I

nvision

P

ower.Product (example: IP.Board)

I

nvision

P

ower

P

roduct.ModuleName (example: IPB.Blog).

This allows us to retain a single syntax naming convention across all our product and sub-product lines. For example, if we were to sell a module for IP.Nexus, then we'd call it IPN.Module.

Matt, you're one hell of a programmer. But the way you've proposed to "subclass" module names is, frankly, a method only a programmer could love. Prospective customers would hate it.

In your example, you're talking about two products: a bulletin board and a blog. I'm Joe Consumer (hypothetically). I'm not a computer geek; I'm a manager. Maybe I've been tasked by the Big Boss to find a way to add some "community" to our corporate site. I'm interested to know more about this company's bulletin board product. I'm also interested to know more about this company's blog product. If your company were to sell the bulletin board as IP.Board but also sell a blog is IPB.Blog, now Joe Consumer is confused as to what's the difference between IP and IPB, and whether that matters to him. Joe just needs to know the names of the things so he can start to get his head around their features, cost, support, etc.

Confusion makes prospective customers uncomfortable. When they're uncomfortable many of them will leave, or their impression is marred by having to spend valuable time getting oriented.

I am happy to see that your company actually is marketing the blog as IP.Blog rather than IPB.Blog (at http://community.ipslink.com/blog/ ). The first line on that page is "IP.Blog is a powerful blogging system that will plug straight into your IP.Board." That's perfect marketing language. It instantly eliminates any confusion as to what it is and how it fits into the product line, and gets the reader excited ("powerful blogging system"). Using language like that on your site means there's no need to add the "B" and call it "IPB.Blog." I'd treat any new modules of IP.Board the same way... skip the "B."

[Dave Baker]

We only really use "IPB" when talking about Invision Power Board in posts on this board. Rikki has mentioned that he's going to clean up the verbiage to make sure it's consistent.

There is no Invision Power Board. There's a product called IP.Board.

I don't know what Invision Power Board is. Don't want to know; don't need to know; don't want to be confused; all I know about is IP.Board (which is now very nicely and consistently described on the company's corporate/marketing web pages -- great job, wonderfully responsive on Rikki's part).

It might be accurate and helpful to say on one of the opening pages "IP.Board (formerly known as Invision Power Board)" -- but then again, that probably would do more harm than good.

And I would discipline any employee who talks about "Invision Power Board" or "IPB" instead of using "IP.Board," especially in writing on the corporate forums, or even over on IPS Beyond. It's for the good of the company; I think the marketing people will agree. If you're going to call the company IPS, you need to call the products something other than a three-letter acronym (IPB, IPN, IPG, etc.) ... I know that you and all the employees and all the existing customers know what you're talking about, but prospective customers and the general public don't and won't.

(You've got a great company, Matt; forgive me for being so presumptuous but I think I'm right and that it would help your company.)

What the heck, while I'm out here on the plank... IPS should be changed. Invision is a way-cool name. I don't like TLAs (Three-Letter-Acronymns); they don't really convey any useful information. They sound like STDs. (No comment.) Assuming there isn't another firm that would balk due to trademark issues, I think you should rename the company (for all marketing and all practical purposes) "Invision." No "Power," no "Services." Those last two words don't add anything useful at all, except maybe in the formal corporate papers at the department of state or down at the bottom in some "copyright Invision Power Services, Inc." -- but I'd even change the official corporate name to Invision, Inc.

I'm now realizing that the gripe that caused me to start this thread is that it took me a long time to figure out that "Power" was part of the company's name. I thought "Power Board" was the name of the bulletin board product.

By changing the corporate name to Invision (or Invision, Inc.), without the "Power" or the "Services," then you could easily and logically get rid of the "IP" in the various products that other posters have objected to (and that I'm not fond of, either): the bulletin board becomes InvisionBoard, and the other products become InvisionBlog and InvisionGallery.

Clean, cool, clear. See if marketing approves; I think they'll go ga-ga over it. Ask them to give their honest opinion and say you won't hold it against them even though you started the company and you came up with the original name. Tap their expertise.

InvisionBlog, InvisionGallery -- I've gotta buy one of those!

[Cybertimber2009]

I

nvision

P

ower.Product (example: IP.Board)

I

nvision

P

ower

P

roduct.ModuleName (example: IPB.Blog).

Correction
InvisionPower.Product (example: IP.Board)
InvisionPowerService.ModuleName (example: IPB.Blog).

[Dave Baker]

Correction

I

nvision

P

ower.Product (example: IP.Board)

I

nvision

P

ower

Service

.ModuleName (example: IPB.Blog).

Hmmm... you mean "(example: IPS.Blog)" ?

This illustrates my point, I think. Too damned confusing to use TLAs, or especially TLA.Ms.

[stobbo]

Correction

I

nvision

P

ower.Product (example: IP.Board)

I

nvision

P

ower

Service

.ModuleName (example: IPB.Blog).

He is correct. The second one would be like:

IPB.Gallery
IPB.Download Manager
IPD.Calendar
IPD.Gallery
IPN.Live Support

It wouldn't be

IPS.Gallery
IPS.Download Manager
IPS.Calendar
IPS.Gallery
IPS.Live Support

I made the Dynamic and Nexus ones up :P

[stobbo]

Matt, you're one hell of a programmer. But the way you've proposed to "subclass" module names is, frankly, a method only a programmer could love. Prospective customers would hate it.

In your example, you're talking about two products: a bulletin board and a blog. I'm Joe Consumer (hypothetically). I'm not a computer geek; I'm a manager. Maybe I've been tasked by the Big Boss to find a way to add some "community" to our corporate site. I'm interested to know more about this company's bulletin board product. I'm also interested to know more about this company's blog product. If your company were to sell the bulletin board as IP.Board but also sell a blog is

IPB

.Blog, now Joe Consumer is confused as to what's the difference between IP and IPB, and whether that matters to him. Joe just needs to know the names of the things so he can start to get his head around their features, cost, support, etc.

Confusion makes prospective customers uncomfortable. When they're uncomfortable many of them will leave, or their impression is marred by having to spend valuable time getting oriented.

I am happy to see that your company actually is marketing the blog as IP.Blog rather than IPB.Blog (at

http://community.ipslink.com/blog/

). The first line on that page is "IP.Blog is a powerful blogging system that will plug straight into your IP.Board." That's perfect marketing language. It instantly eliminates any confusion as to what it is and how it fits into the product line, and gets the reader excited ("powerful blogging system"). Using language like that on your site means there's no need to add the "B" and call it "IPB.Blog." I'd treat any new modules of IP.Board the same way... skip the "B."

Thats a good point. Its being labelled as IP.Blog on the site and in the feedback forums, but IPB.Blog in the bug tracker and by Matt. Which is it?

[Dave Baker]

He is correct. The second one would be like:

IPB.Gallery

IPB.Download Manager

IPD.Calendar

IPD.Gallery

IPN.Live Support

It wouldn't be

IPS.Gallery

IPS.Download Manager

IPS.Calendar

IPS.Gallery

IPS.Live Support

I made the Dynamic and Nexus ones up :P

(Oh, my. I am now so dizzy that I've started to puke.)

[Guest]

By changing the corporate name to Invision (or Invision, Inc.), without the "Power" or the "Services," then you could easily and logically get rid of the "IP" in the various products that other posters have objected to (and that I'm not fond of, either): the bulletin board becomes

InvisionBoard

, and the other products become

InvisionBlog

and

InvisionGallery

.

That would be taking the naming full circle, back to ( almost ) the first names used for the products. Invision Board and Invision Gallery were used for a long time, each product even used its own domain in that format ( invisionboard.com, invisiongallery.com, etc. ).

I've got to say, I personally prefer the IP.Board naming scheme. :)

[Sam A]

I like IP.Board and IP.Nexus etc but IPB.Blog just looks like there is no idea of consistency. Until I read this topic that's what I assumed when I looked at the Bug Tracker. If you've eliminated IPB from use as the official acronym for Invision Power Board, it makes no sense whatsoever to use it as the product name for IP.Board's modules.

[Digi]

This topic makes my head hurt. You are right though, for someone that has been around through all (ok whatever, most :rolleyes:) of the evolution, it is easy for me to understand the changes and exactly what they mean. I can see where the confusion for new prospects comes from however, as even I have problems tracking all the differing IP.this and IPB.that everywhere. It makes sense on paper and perhaps within the community, but scary for new folks.

[stobbo]

I like IP.Board and IP.Nexus etc but IPB.Blog just looks like there is no idea of consistency. Until I read this topic that's what I assumed when I looked at the Bug Tracker. If you've eliminated IPB from use as the official acronym for Invision Power Board, it makes no sense whatsoever to use it as the product name for IP.Board's modules.

Going on your point, If they add a Gallery module for IP.Dynamic, you'd have IP.Gallery and IP.Gallery - one for IP.Dynamic and one for IP.Board. Whereas if you have IPD.Gallery and IPB.Gallery it'll make it easy to differentiate between them. But I see your point about it not being consistent.

[Dave Baker]

if you have IPD.Gallery and IPB.Gallery it'll make it easy to differentiate between them.

Ack. I don't think so. One looks like somebody made a typo trying to type the other.

"Gallery for IP.Board" and "Gallery for IP.Dynamic" would be fine and much clearer. They don't need a unique string like a PHP variable (though that might be how a developer would do it, but not a prospective customer).