Interview with Matt Mecham @ IPB (Invision Power Board)
This article was first posted on our blog on 07/10/2010. For this reason, the information may be outdated and no longer reliable/correct.
Invision Power Services Chieft Software Architect and founder of the forum software, Matt Mecham has accepted an interview with ForumPromotion. We're thrilled to be interviewing this highly skilled software developer. IPB is currently leading the commercial forum software market in the eyes of many, and has remained loyal to it's customers where vBulletin and Internet Brands hasn't. Matt's a busy guy but he managed to answer these questions by working around his busy schedule. Cheers Matt. Did you think ever IPB would get as big as it currently is? When Charles and I started IPS in 2002, we never dared to think that we'd end up employing over a dozen people and doing something we love doing for a living. I still had a full time job at the time and I couldn't see that changing. We feel very fortunate to have been able to turn a small PHP script into a business that continues to grow. Of course, we're never complacent and always strive to improve. I don't think you can really take too long to enjoy the scenery. There's always competition nipping at your heels and that drives you on. I get up every morning and can't wait to get stuck into the day's challenges. Where do you see IPB in 10 years? That's a very good question. If you had asked Apple that question 10 years ago, I'm not sure they would have said "Leading the way in portable music players and smartphones". With this industry trends change dramatically over a short space of time so you have to always be willing to adapt and change. 10 years ago the notion of 'social networking' was still in its infancy so few could have predicted the impact Facebook and Twitter have on the web today.
For IPS, I would like to see us continue to grow and still pushing the boundaries of community software. As long as there are people, there is a need for a centralized community.
What do you do to help the mod community?
We love our modifications community and we continue to work with the community to help nurture it. First and foremost, almost all of the IPS staff are very active on the forums. This includes all the senior developers. I think this is important for many reasons but in regards to modifications it means that we can listen to feedback on how to improve the built in systems in our products.
We host a 'community resources' section on our own site that allows modification authors to list their mods. We give them a 'contributor' badge on the forums if they have modifications listed. We also have 'contributor' forums so that modification authors can ask direct questions to the development team and each other.
We're always trying to improve documentation on our systems. IP.Board 3 was a huge step up for modification authors because it introduced applications and hooks which makes writing modifications much easier.
Both Brandon and I come from a modifications background, so we appreciate the challenges and needs that it brings.
Developing such big software must be very time consuming - do you ever feel like giving up?
It's very much a team effort but I never feel like giving up, not even for a minute. I can't express how much I love what I'm doing. I love the challenges and the people. I am constantly thinking of new ways to drive our products on. Development can be time consuming and frustrating but I thoroughly enjoy it. I'm lucky to do something that I enjoy for a living.
How would you recommend new webmasters go about promoting their websites?
It largely depends on the community. The basics are the same for everyone, though. Harness social networking, don't be afraid of it. IP.Board comes with Facebook and Twitter integration. Allow your members to share links to these sites so that their social circle can discover your forum and content. I've tweeted links to our community forum and that topic can have a few hundred guests on within ten minutes. I'm not saying that those guests will register and become long standing members, but you have to admit that it is a powerful tool when used correctly. I'd say that you have to make it as easy as possible to register and join in. Enabled Facebook Connect. It's reasonable to assume that most people have a Facebook account so being able to register simply by clicking a few buttons will increase registrations.
Even if you intensely dislike Facebook, don't underestimate its reach. Facebook may be a short lived fad but it currently has 500 million users. It's fast becoming a ubiquitous sign in method. I love forums and websites that allow me to sign up using Facebook.
What impact will the growing popularity of social networking sites have on the usage of discussion forums?
When I want to go and see what my friends are doing, I check in on Facebook. I can see their status updates, videos and pictures about their weekend. When I want to make contact with my customers to get feedback on our latest products, I go to our forum.
This isn't revolutionary but it underlines that social networking sites have a different purpose to forums. Of course, there is some cross over but you cannot replace a forum with Facebook and vice-versa. There is always going to be a need for organized discussion that focuses on specific topics.
More and more people are going from vBulletin to IPB - what does IPB3 have over vBulletin 4?
I think there are several factors in the mass migration from vBulletin. The biggest being that Internet Brands have completely destroyed their brand and customer loyalty in the past year. They have slayed their golden goose. Inertia will keep sales ticking over but the dinosaur is definitely staring at the asteroid.
Of course, disgruntled vBulletin customers are only a small part of our customer base. We do still keep an eye on the situation but we are now also paying great attention to other competitors with a more modern, stable platform we can focus our competitive efforts on
Personally I see the growth in social sites as a good thing. I can broadcast links to topics to my social circle who can choose to share that information on. I can sign up to forums without filling in a long complex form and waiting for an activation email. I can update my status updates from a single source. More people connected means more traffic if you leverage it correctly.
How do you compete in the competitive battle between vB and IPB? - are you winning?
We produce good software at a fair price. We treat our customers with respect and listen to their opinions and needs. I don't think we need to do anything more.
What do you think about other free forum software alternatives e.g. phpBB, how do they compare to IPB?
I think there's lots of great free software out there. I have a lot of respect for developers that donate their free time to those projects. I'd say the gap between commercial software and free software is growing wider as the web moves on and we adapt to it. In many ways simply having a 'forum' isn't enough. Customers are looking for an integrated suite of applications they can use to built a complete and feature rich site.
Kier has begun development on a new forum software - XenForo - what are your thoughts on it?
I have a lot of respect for Kier. We only really started talking after he left vBulletin and we have a lot in common. He's a very skilled developer with a lot of experience and an existing "fan" base which will be a fantastic boost in the early stages. Lots of new projects fail because they don't offer anything new and are not significantly different from existing and well supported applications so it's nice to see XenForo approach things a little differently.
XenForo has a lot of visual flair which is great to see. It's certainly generating a lot of buzz at the moment. I really do wish Kier and Mike all the best and look forward to many years of healthy competition.
You can check out IPB here - http://www.invisionpower.com/products/board/
Invision Power Services Chieft Software Architect and founder of the forum software, Matt Mecham has accepted an interview with ForumPromotion. We're thrilled to be interviewing this highly skilled software developer. IPB is currently leading the commercial forum software market in the eyes of many, and has remained loyal to it's customers where vBulletin and Internet Brands hasn't. Matt's a busy guy but he managed to answer these questions by working around his busy schedule. Cheers Matt. Did you think ever IPB would get as big as it currently is? When Charles and I started IPS in 2002, we never dared to think that we'd end up employing over a dozen people and doing something we love doing for a living. I still had a full time job at the time and I couldn't see that changing. We feel very fortunate to have been able to turn a small PHP script into a business that continues to grow. Of course, we're never complacent and always strive to improve. I don't think you can really take too long to enjoy the scenery. There's always competition nipping at your heels and that drives you on. I get up every morning and can't wait to get stuck into the day's challenges. Where do you see IPB in 10 years? That's a very good question. If you had asked Apple that question 10 years ago, I'm not sure they would have said "Leading the way in portable music players and smartphones".
