The true purpose of the relaunch? - Page 2

I make no money from ads because I don't run any! I have 9 different hobbies and I'm an enthusiast.

I don't see why these have to be mutually exclusive. I have invested more than a few hours on this site but it is their site and as such I hope they get rich... why shouldn't they? The site isn't a non-profit and whatever decision they make regarding its usability is theirs to make. Change by nature will bring negatives and positives and I have a few negatives myself. However, I don't think one can really judge the net effect without letting some time pass.

And that would be where?

Audiogon became a disaster after the change. And while it got a small bit better, it is still a much, much poorer user experience than before they mucked it up. I would have left Audiogon in a minute if there were really any good place to go. Same problem with AVS.

Yup. I have nothing personal against the Huddler designers/owners but for all their enthusiasm, all I can say is I was a daily user of HTF prior to their redesign. After the makeover I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but after more than a year later I can honestly say I never go there anymore to 'hang out'. It's a destination of last resort at this point- after all the other conversations elsewhere have dried up.

Looks like AVS is following suit. Such a shame.

Wow - what an amazing collection of drama.

Why shouldn't a forum that the vast majority of us enjoy for free attempt to generate add revenue. I'd greatly prefer that to a paid membership that would shrink the community 95%.

Well, I remember that was the rap with HTF a couple years back. I remember them relaying all kinds of rosy scenarios of how this new format would help them generate revenue- how advertisers steered clear of anything that seemed like a 'message board', how the sidebar would be utilized, and on and on.
Two years later I can't see where they've gotten any new ad accounts- and a good % of their regular posting membership has fled. The same will happen here. Don't take my word for it, just wait and see.

HTF is a sad shadow of the vibrant community it once was. And the Huddler platform is a big reason.

If only it was a case of ad revenue few would complain. It seems you and others fail to understand the significance of this change.

On one hand it's like the difference between hosting a blog on Blogspot vs. Wordpress. On blogger, Google controls the back end and protects you from viruses and makes your backups and all that hard work, on WordPress you have your own server and control EVERYTHING about it. If Wordpress creates a new version you can move to it or not at your option. On blogger everyone moves to the new version instantly without even knowing it.

But its worse than that. Add on top of it the fact that now you have a "partner" who is a little bit like a pod person and a little bit like the empire. They are in charge of all the advertising and layout and stuff and you don't get to control much of that any more, and if you have legit things to complain about (like say the fact that your site is a hot mess on an iPad) the say "yeah we'll get right on that" and it could be, oh I dunno, two years before things are fixed if at all. And you split the revenue with them because they are doing all the legwork and getting ad $$$ and you are just an admin now herding the cats that are your members.

Pray they do not alter the terms of the deal, Captain solo!

And now those cool little visual enhancements you spent 2 months working on to make your site look different? All gone because Huddler are noobs compared to more powerful forum software thats been building for 10+ years. They SWEAR they will get better any time soon! Seriously, go look at HTF, EpicSki or any other huddler site (and good luck finding a public list of them!) and they all look alike.

Look in the forum feedback sub forums and see the complaints you have to look forward to for the forseeable future.

David may be an awesome guy and he may have had an awesome team to help him make this one of the best forums visually speaking, but now that is over. Huddler is in charge of all the new visual looks and guess what, there's not much there to look forward too and they will ignore David the same they have every other forum.

The trail of users gnashing teeth and crying foul on EVERY SINGLE FORUM they have been involved with should be a huge warning sign, but apparently the lure of bigger ad dollars makes that stand out far less.
Edited by Kadath - 6/6/12 at 6:43pm

I think the core of the issues in this thread is simply if the AVS honchos care about their users. If they do, then I hope they're wise enough to have a full backup under their ownership so if it all goes to poo they can resurrect it under a different host.

No telling what the fine print is, but since Huddler is hosting and maintaining it, with software provided for free, I'd be concerned about that fine print.

New look BLOWS!

HTF is a shadow of its former self and that road to ghost town-hood started with the switch to Huddler in 2009. Huddler's user interface is horrible compared to VBulletin.

Time to write preemptive pleas to the owners of Blu-ray.com to beg they never switch to Huddler.

Mark

Since I have sites on both Wordpress and Blogger, I'm well aware of the differences and also don't appreciate the assumption that I don't know the Huddler business model. The world is moving forward, and you can either lament the loss of the past or accept change and move forward. I remember the same whinging when BBS's transitioned from dial up to the www. And how the world was ending when Compuserv was supplanted by services like AOL.

Sites like AVS have business choices to make and like many, many are realizing that funding bespoke development on custom platforms may not be the best use of their capital. Much like the cloud computing model, you trade off some ownership for the ability to utilize a shared platform at reduced Capex and Opex.

As to whether Huddler sites look the same, is having multiple forums operate using a common UI a bad thing? And for a significant and growing population of users, it's already an irrelevant topic. Applications like Tapatalk centralize access to and create a common UI for the majority of forums they access on mobile devices.

It's a change and it's understandable that not everyone will be happy, particularly on day one, but the conspiracy theories and overplayed drama are a bit over the top for me

This 'new' forum works ok, after I turn javascript off that is.

Yes it was for 'newer' ways to put out more ads and crawlers. I have yet to see anything 'better', less features is more like it.

That site bombards it readers with ads already, why would they change?

Have you been to any of the converted sites mentioned here? Audigon (which I'm not familiar with) and HTF? It's been 2 years of misery and broken promises at HTF.

Have you tried using the new AVS on a mobile device?

If you knew me you'd understand I'm -very- familiar with SaaS and similar tech. The first rule there is do no harm. That's not Huddler's way tho, they go in and take over a community REGARDLESS of what it means to the users there. I had to laugh at the video, especially Win/Win/Win. No. It's Win/win/lose. Perhaps there ARE Huddler success stories but if Huddler can honestly say HTF today is Win/Win/Win they should be ashamed of themselves.

The problem isn't look. The problem isn't that we don't want the owners to make money. The problem is, frankly, that Huddler is cookie cutter garbage. I say this with all honesty. Huddler has pretty much driving the Home Theater Forum into a place that is far less fun then it ever was in the past - and I don't know if it's considerably more profitable (by any search metric I can find, it most certainly isn't more well trafficked.. the crowd there has totally dropped)

Huddler's core functions are worthless - try searching for ANYTHING.. their search engine is complete and total garbage, it ranks right up there with hitting "I Feel Lucky" on Google.

i don't mind the look or layout - that's fine. But the thing is, there was a time where a site like HTF would totally go all out for "Simpsons the Movie" color schemes would change, backgrounds would alter.. where is that now? Undoable because Huddler is a cookie cutter platform.

Huddler promises ownership that: "VB is hard.. upkeeping it is draining your life away.. let us do it for just a % of the money.." seems like a good deal. Owners, after all, do deserve to benefit financially and they don't need to work 24/7. In return, you get a website that doesn't work correctly on an iPad/iPhone, responses and layouts suck, and because unique post layouts don't work correctly, things like user guides which used to be framed in great HTML markup never look the same again.

Bad few years for forums. HTF. The Green Button, AVS. It's too bad really.

Everything I've done or posted this evening as been by iPad. Though there have been a few inconveniences, the HTML5 update should easily address most of these. That said, with the availability of the site on the Tapatalk platform, all of those issues can be avoided via the app.

I use several Huddler based sites regularly including head-FI. Seems to get the job done for me and the vast majority of that community, which seems busier than ever.

What? No Simpsons background capability on AVS.....

Seriously, those are exactly the kind of superfluous features that I won't miss. Doesn't add any value to the forums in my opinion.

The iOS implementation isn't perfect, but if the HTML5 based site is as close as they are hinting, that should cease to be an issue. If it doesn't arrive as planned, there are other options until it does.

Use Firefox and AdBlock Plus. No more Mr. Advert Guy and this site gets some white bits back!
Edited by pieandchips - 6/6/12 at 8:03pm

There is www.thegreenbutton.tv for anyone in need of good old phpBB

It's only the first day since the switch. But my initial impression is that I don't like this new look. Maybe in a few days I'll get comfortable again. But right now it really stinks.
I wasn't aware of what Huddler was until this thread. And I fully agree with the prior statements about the cookie cutter approach. I quit HTF a couple of years ago simply because the site looked like a giant billboard.

what's next...like us on Facebook links?

edit: there it is; the Facebook tie in...right at the top of the page

That's the one point I completely agree with you on -- but for entirely different reasons.

I think there's a major element that's getting glossed over here. You just had the CEO of Huddler come into this thread and tell you that he and his brother (the CTO) were inspired by AVS to create a company to support forums like it. These are the guys that, ultimately, decide where all of the company's resources go -- what features get built, what customizations get made, what things get prioritized, and so on.

Let me just repeat that: AVS is one of the reasons they founded the company.

And, they've given you a firm commitment that they're listening to the community's needs to make AVS as great as it can be. You have their ear (not to mention all of the rest of us who also care deeply about this place). That's extremely valuable, and I guarantee this would not be the case with any other platform provider.

Look, we all know the platform isn't perfect yet (really, what platform ever is?), we know mobile is coming, we know there are lots of things that folks here are going to want us to improve. But that level of commitment -- and that level of personal interest -- is not something to be taken lightly. It demands at least some level of good faith that what you see on day 1 isn't what to expect for good.

So you've voiced your concerns -- good. I don't blame you actually. That's important stuff for us to hear and be aware of. But hopefully it all stems from a genuine interest in the health of AVS and not some grudge against the platform. The reality is, AVS had to get out of its prior situation (David's posted about that in the past, but hit him up if you want more background), and he saw a good fit in -- and level of commitment from -- Huddler.

Honestly, though, talk is talk. We can all say anything at this point -- instead, the real proof should be in our actions. Hold us to an extremely high standard. Bookmark this thread, and if in a few months time you feel like AVS is getting irreparably damaged through a lack of functionality or commitment on our part, call us out on it. If that's truly the case, we deserve it.

(A little context, if you care: I just joined Huddler as VP of Content and Community, and my background spans all sort of community efforts, from forums I've started to larger scale sites like 1UP.com, which, in its heyday, was the most active community for video games on the web. I don't claim to be some know-it-all who can solve everything, but this stuff is in my DNA too, and I genuinely care to make this place better).

PM me anytime with complaints or concerns. I'm listening.

Good grief. I remember hearing the same kind of stuff two years ago on HTF.
I waited, I saw.
Sorry, but as is clear to just about everyone who ever used to participate there or infrequently still does, Huddler was the biggest mistake they ever made.
Sorry to see AVS follow them into the abyss.

If you are like me, you WON'T get used to the new look. Home Theater Forum is a royal pain in the ass to navigate and participate. Adopting Huddler was the biggest mistake they ever made.

Mark

If Huddler founders were truly inspired by independent forums like AVS, HTF, etc... they wouldn't strip the forums of the things that made them great in the first place and apply their own difficult to navigate cookie-cutter look and feel.

OK, so I didn't live through the HT Forum catastrophe falling into the abyss thingy, what specifically is so hard to navigate to right now?

honestly i've used adblocking software for years and i truly have no idea what everyone is talking about with sidebar ads, ads plastered everywhere, etc.

I was not aware that the whole world simply didnt use adblock software.

Of course I come from the Lynx days when this wasnt an issue anyway....lol

Roll back 2 years and they told HTF the same exact thing. The threads of pain are still there. I can show you where they have been promising that mobile is a priority real soon now for years.

We'll see =)

These Huddler sites won't format properly on my mobile device at all. Since that is all I have access to on the road, it means I have to pretty much ignore those sites completely. I mean I could get the latest and greatest and get along with a new data plan to 'enjoy' this site- or I could just surf over to one of the ones left using vBulletin and not have to deal with any end user frustration.

But hey, it's still early. Many people may not realize what a colossal mistake has been made for a few months yet.

AdBlock anyone? Jeez.

why is there so much empty space in 1 line posts?? way too much space taken up.