WebHostingTalk profile is very nice

[Strike X]

I thought WebHostingTalk member's profile is very nice layout.. maybe IPB profile could have done better?

Example of profile: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/profile/SoftWareRevue

[Lee Craven]

I disagree Shahid, looks too much like a 'Social Site' profile, IPB made the profiles very well, they are clean and simple, the idea of a forum is not really for members to be somewhat personal, it's about discussions in the most part, if you want to know more about a forum user the 'simple & clean' profile is there to give you that information, and that's just what it does. IPB are not a social networking company, more so a professional company.

Also looking at the profile you posted (I didn't browse) - it appears to be advertising many other things rather than 'webhostingtalk' itself, ie: flickr, twitter and youtube, not something I would be wanting to see upon checking someones profile, maybe under a seperate tab, but not the initial profile.

[Strike X]

I disagree with you Lee

[Ryan H.]

I disagree with you Lee

I think that goes without saying.


I agree with Lee. This is a forum profile, not a "who I am on every other popular website on the internet:"

[Amy T]

I think that goes without saying.

I agree with Lee. This is a forum profile, not a "who I am on every other popular website on the internet:"

lol ya would agree there.

[Kapi]

It is a very nice profile, it could perhaps be a mod for IPB, but I wouldn't want to see it in the product itself.

[sparc]

Yeah, i don't see the need for it all to be integrated.

I think most of it can be added as Custom Profile Fields....links to twitter, facebook, myspace, youtube

[Lee Craven]

I disagree with you Lee

lol I knew you would, I said the opposite of what you asked.

[Jυra]

I personally don't care for it, but it's good. I don't know how it'll handle comments with IPB when comment are viewed as posts if you set it to.

[Rheddy]

Ack, I have to agree that that site looks more a social networking site. I wouldn't want that integrated in IPB either.

[jackflash]

It's interesting to note that these "social sites" are beginning to become more popular than forums. Could something like this when integrated with a forum become a better "mouse trap."

I could see this as being of great benefit to some sites that want to become more "social" forums in their content.

I would bet that some software company will come out with something like this sooner than later.

[backdream]

It 's so sweet, I pefer it than IPB's.

[Rheddy]

I think IPB is risking becoming another Microsoft. You know? From the Windows OS borrowing too much from other OS's instead of relying on its own in-house original ideas. We're just at the first stage of this process. Everyone proposing integrating Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and every other community portal out there instead of relying on what made IPB popular in the first place ... a quality message forum program that doesn't 'clone' itself from other products in the market.

Granted, that IPB wants to expand itself, but integrating IPB into other community projects out there is not the way to go. I think IPB works fine by itself as a social community and that IPS should create its own version of a social networking tool, much like Myspace, but it shouldn't be integrating with those.

I have done this with my site design many times but discovered that continuisly borrowing ideas from what others have previously done makes the final product less original and too dependent on those networking sites. I think IPB is risking too much on this and if what I suspect comes to pass, I may dump IPB for PHPBB or even vBulletin.

I have always been satisfied with IPB, but, I don't like this new direction it's going in.

I just feel that various software, CMS's, website design and forum software, is trying too hard to integrate into these social networking sites that it's diluting the final product.