Is the the downward spiral after the peak?

Rewind to a few years back when these forums were moving and flowing non stop, with wonderful ideas, people bouncing ideas off each other for site improvements... Even when people were so heartfelt about their own sites that the topic "who has the best/biggest site" who end with hack attempts and death threats. The days you could come here at any hour of any day needing help with an "emergency" and have some of the best minds in social networking here to help you out. Back when we all set very inpatiently anticipating Dolphin 8 to get a release date.. Back when Michael and H.L. would bicker at least a few times a week. Sure I still see the post popping up with tech questions here and there but the "vibe" is gone... I honestly think the new layout might had killed the passion that these forums and site owners once had... kinda sad.

is it just me?

Trying to revive those kind of topics again ?

lol 

 good idea!!!... wonder if i can find the one where everyone was saying what an awesome mod dosdawg would be.... off to look

 Ok, i can see you are trying hard to start a boonex war again. You really enjoy it i guess ROFL

I think I see it last year alone.
My fear is that we wont't attract new or keep our ace developers.
Tboulley was recently kicked out and I had hoped that he would be some fresh blood and among the Top 5. 

I miss the passion this place once had, it was actually part of the reason I decided to go with Boonex in the first place. I liked it, it helped us all be very competitive and actually made us focus on our sites more so one person didn't top you while you was asleep. I don't know, maybe I'm just being emotional,, hope im not about to start my period.

 EXACTLY MY POINT!!.. we get no fresh awesome minds and the ones we have are slowly leaving and never coming back!

If Pranshank, Micheal, and Deano ever leave that will be the day i will be forced to switch to a new format.. cause then we are all screwed!

 Oh.... stop it i will die laughing 

 I agree.

Ive been with Dolphin for a few years now, spent thousands of $ on licenses, modules and themes + custom work on pre 7.1 sites...

Made the 'optional' move to 7.1 - although not so optional as many of the bugs reported in pre 7.1 were no longer going to be fixed in that version so upgrade was kinda forced if you were a serious site builder...

Anyway, after a slow and painful experience upgrading all my sites, in which several 'new bugs' were revealed... only option has been to start over with clean 7.1 install as the upgrades did not seem to work properly if you had anything other than nothing installed.

So, Im now left with half my mods that have 'still' not been upgraded to 7.1....

MOST of my themes are in the bin, and being asked to pay again for 7.1 usable versions.

On top of all that, I find that Dolphin is just getting left behind. Mobile app is really a waste of time. 

Considering a HUGE portion of social network use is now via mobiles, it should really be priority to get the mobile app, to offer the same experience as the full version.

OR develop a responsive/fluid version of Dolphin so we can just use it as a mobile site without and app in the first place!...

Wordpress which is the other script I work with, has become my first choice now. With a little know-how it can do everything Dolphin does but with 100 times the plugins and themes - many free. Oh, it does social networks also... and it's responsive... 

Sorry to be a 'downer' boonex, but it just seems that 7.1 killed me off. What it offers as 'upgrades' on  pre 7.1 in no way counter the losses incurred via 3rd party modules, themes etc that just don't work with it. Im sure eventually, developers may get round to upgrading everything, after all, with all us customers having invested money into them they should do... but it seems even a number of developers are dropping away and no longer offering support!

Something went very wrong in the process of releasing the new version.

Should have been smooth, quick and offered more instead of killing half the market and half the sites that were already built on pre 7.1...

I COULD NOT AGREE MORE!!!.. mobile is where the world is not "going" it is where it has "gone" .. the price for the mobile apps to be useful is ridiculous .. not to mention totally lacking!... im betting they havent sold more then a handful.. if the did a price buster price say 400 for both they would make up the difference in the volume of sales then they ever will make the way they are doing it.. my site right now runs atleast 30 percent mobile users, sometimes more,, and that is constant traffic.

mobile apps is gonna be what has me searching for a dolphin replacement.. as much as i would love to stick with dolphin for the long run it ends up just me shooting myself in the foot and holding myself back to do so im afraid.

If your site is for users doing sound bytes; like, "I am having soup for lunch".  Seriously, if you want that kind of social site, find a FaceSucks clone.  You can not do serious social networking on a three or four inch screen or some tablet with no keyboard.  What you are seeing is a society that is brain dead who follows the marketing hype thrown at them from the likes of FaceSucks and Apple. 

Marketing Hype? lol The world is on the move, most people have jobs and don't have time to sit around all day at some PC browsing their favorite social sites. Mobile is very important, look at statistics. More people browse the web mobile then from behind a monitor. ANY website in 2013 needs good mobile, why would you want to handicap your website?

 wow,,  GG really? you dont think a proper mobile app is important for any site that plans to survive the next coming few years? ... people only set at a desk and used a computer cause they HAD to,, cause monitors had picture tubes and weighed 100 pounds,, then came the laptop, and only think stopping EVERYONE from making that switch was price, but still over half preferred to use a laptop to a desktop.. that was 10 years ago!.. today is all smart phones and tablets,, and just you watch as phones get smarter desktops and laptops will see fewer and fewer amounts of use.. if you are going to compete or even plan to be a surviving site you NEED apps,, not having them is setting yourself up for failure.,,, just look at the statistics  and im not talking about wall feed and just like that on god for saken facebook  either... I mean an app that allows the members of our sites to use what our sites are made to supply,., PROFILES.

 Thing is (unfortunately) we live in a world of i-sheep. If you want users you have to hurd the i-sheep to your site and they all use small screens and devices without keyboards.... It is very sad but very true.

 Define 'serious social networking'... 

Facts are that people are rapidly moving, or have already moved to mobile devices for the majority of social driven internet use no matter what site its on. Google reported last year that 66% increased mobile internet use last year, with the same increase set each year estimated from here on. In the same report, those who used internet for social network activity - the majority did so using mobile devices!

If you insist that 'we don't need mobile dolphin' just cos facebook do it and we don't wanna just follow them... then you are shooting yourself in the foot while wearing a blindfold.

Mobile app is NOT the way forwards either. RESPONSIVE template IS.

Unless of course the app resembles the desktop platform properly and doesn't just give extremely limited and clunky features...

Wordpress is not responsive. Joomla is not responsive. Yet both have responsive themes that can simply be 'plugged in' and still allow full functional use. 

I don't know if there's something in Dolphin code that doesn't allow it to happen, or that developers just don't get enough return from sales to finance it... or something else! 

The issue is though that without it, Dolphin is seriously becoming part of the 'old days' of internet use. Other CMS are adapting to allow social networking to be built using their platforms, with all the bells and whistles needed for modern browsing.

I really like Dolphin, have been a customer for many years (own 10 licenses!) but these days, I find myself just not being able to build with it. Biggest issue for me by FAR is the mobile issue... until this is sorted, I have to use another platform as I'm sure many others probably will find also.

I can smell someone is working on a responsive template :P

A responsive template would be nice to see.  Closest thing to a mobile template is the WAP module, and that's...  Well, it's more suited for Mobile Web 2.0 than Opera Mobile.

not me. Interested in someone quoting it though. Might just keep me using Dolphin... at the moment Im forced to look elsewhere just due to this issue!

Might post in jobs section, anyone interested in chipping in to get it done? Would mean you get Dolphin FULLY mobile... 

 I'll be sticking it out.. This is a source of income for me.

I have to agree that since the forums here changed, it has become less active, the layout is wrong and not easy for new people to navigate.

I'll be gone three more weeks, I do miss my daily talks here!

So guys, stick it out, The forums usually slow down anytime a new version is released because most are working on their sites.

As far a HL and I having our little quips, don't worry, we will still have them.

I'm not back at home yet!! lmao

Im not as active on the forums as Im finding Dolphin in general not doing what I used to be able to get it to do!

Half my modules are still not 7.1 compatible, nearly all my themes are no longer useable and as for mobile use...

Don't want to keep going on about it but 7.1 feels like a step backwards in many ways. 

 there is always hope for dolphin 8! 

 Update hungry people 

I had a rather elaborate reply composed, but then my fuckn browser crashed.. so to hell with it.  Basically, activity went down the drain about the same time Boonex killed the blogs.

So, what can be done to get the BUZZ back at Boonex? The current forum, market, pricing system doesn't seem to work anymore.

It's all up to the Boonies.... do they even hear us?

I have a new dolphin 7 template and I need someone who can do the customisation of the joing form, the template will be use for swingers so i need users to choose if they are couple,male, female, tx, gay,group.

here is my template: http://www.fabswingers.it/

 Someone explain me how a job post will help here?

 RE:

 It's a perfect example of why you can't have any meaningful discussions of ideas in these forums.  Posts get buried by idiots like this guy, that can't even figure out how to use a simple web site like this one, yet they want to admin a Dolphin site.

 well by his description .. i think he is fishing for members,, and seeings it says "tx" think the dude is trying in someway to directly scout H.L. and ME!!.. dude thanks but no thanks I am happy getting mine the old fashion way.. from CRAIGSLIST! lol

No they don't, or if they do they ignore us.  As I just mentioned, some of the directions that Boonex is taking isn't helping to bring more users into Dolphin community and may even be driving some of the current users away.

I'm kinda on the fence. Reason being that I remember back when the forum was really busy it was full of people like.... well I won't mention any names but I can think of at least 6 people I don't miss at all. I would say even though there are fewer people here now they are mostly dedicated to actually helping people. 

I mean a 6 page thread of people doing nothing but insulting each other is entertaining to read now and again but it doesn't really encourage people looking for help. 

But the drama added something special.  I remember that one guy who went ballistic over video formats or something.

Activity does look to be down, but I don't know if that says anything about Dolphin itself.  Plenty of users don't post here.

Yep, we hear you. I'll give you some insight...

- Activity in general has been slowing down during 2012, but picked up in 2013. Basically, the long line of service version updates cooled people down gradually. 

- Activity in forums/discussions is lower than ever, however, and this drop mostly happened once we've limited discussions to Forums and removed Unity homepage. Now, discussions are "opt-in" - one has to go to Forums to get involved. Over years we've always considered lower forum activity (proportionally to site traffic) a good sign - fewer posts means fewer issues. We think that 7.1 is generally a lot more stable than 7.0.

- After 7.1 release and Boonex.com update we see a significant improvement in base quality parameters - time on site, ppv, etc. We're very positive about current Market improvements, upcoming products and strategies that will ensure fresh wave of activity on the Market and Boonex.com in general. It's a somewhat tough market right now, and this can be seen by tracking most of the competition performance, but we're very positive about the future anyway.

 Andrew, be careful not to also ignore those who are not using the forums (and finding issues maybe) because 7.1 has made their sites un-usable!

My experience has not been a positive one. the issues have not necessarily been with the script, but have been with the forced upgrade resulting in lack of modules and themes working from the 3-4k worth I've invested in over the years... Even now, module developers are still  not updating and some are charging again for updated versions to existing customers.

When I say 'forced upgrade', I know no one was holding a gun to our heads, but when all of a sudden it became obvious that the bugs existing in 7.0.x would remain and would only be addressed in 7.1 - we are effectively forced to upgrade. 

For those of us who have been loyal spending customers over the years, this has resulted in a big loss of working modules and templates.

ALL my sites that were upgraded have gone to pot. Some the upgrade process would not work properly. Sure, it would upgrade to one of the betas... but then not the next. Or, the same with the non beta upgrade. I had 10 working licenses on the go. I now have 2 in development, waiting for a couple of my mods to be updated... the rest are all now offline as the bugs and lack of function  forced them that way.

Some of us may not be here reporting as many bugs right now, maybe because we are no longer actually as busy USING Dolphin as we were!...

I've posted many bug issues during this process, nearly all to just be ignored.

Reality is 7.1 is a good product yes. The upgrade process however, has been a long slow drawn-out pain in the arse and until the market is updated - the process is still going on for many.

Hopefully, those of us who have been here a long time, but are not 'as busy reporting bugs' on the forum will now be written off in hope of a nice clean new user base along with a nice clean new product version. 

Instead of just focusing on getting the market to be a smoother process, moving around a few bits here and there, and all that, there needs to be 'some' focus on getting developers to update their products so they are useable! There needs to be something in place to encourage this, and also to support the many users who have had to wait a long time to get updates applied. 

I also disagree that we should be charged again for an updated product just because 'it's a new version'. It's the same module and theme... its the same $$$ in your bank account that I put there to use your module/theme also. If it were a physical product, I would give it back to you (developers) and get my money back because it DOESNT WORK ANYMORE.

rant over :-)

I have to agree with Daihlo. He, like most of us, has made a significant investment.

My investment in my site runs to.... well let me just say it is well in excess of £10000! Guess what.... It still doesnt do what it should, and there is no way on earth that I could even considder upgrading it becuause few of the modules will work and I will not pay again for modules (or template and theme work) when I have already forked out so much for a site that has no chance of re-couping any of the expenditure as long as Boonex doesnt support those that are funding it.

I am planning a new site which I will start from scratch. I also have a dolphin license for the new site, but I very much doubt it will be built on the dolphin platform because of past experience.

Nathan

Well biggest problem I see is that always last about 10 bugs is moved to next version .. same happen with 7.1.1 - was released before all bugs were closwed and about 10 last bugs were moved to 7.1.2 and some even to 7.2. I would rather wait another 2 weeks to complete bugfix.

Anyway biggest problem I see with whole dolphin is market. Well guys dolphin will be practically useless without 3rd party modules so they are needed. THing is that modules are quite expensive in comparsion with 3rd party components for Joomla or Wordpress where most extensions are priced up to  30 USD. There are some developers who keep their products on affordable level - Deano and also Esase have by my opinion most friendly policy. I know its not that easy - Joomla and WP have much more wide user base so popular extension buy much more people but for example for me pricing of dolphin modules is a big drawback a I cant afford buy most of good modules. I think for dolphin to be really usable you need invest around 500-1.000 USD on modules and another 1.000 -3.000 on custom programming. The custom programming is worst thing as it increase initial money you have to spent to really high level and just few people can afford invest total of 4.000 USD to dolphin - and of course you gonna spent more and more money ... thats the most worst thing.

So whats the problem ? I can compare with Joomla area where Am very active for years. There is about 20-30 top extensions which are widely used by many users and their developers make their extensions cross compatible - that means they test many most popular other 3rd party extensions with their own for compatibiulity issues and developing plugins that make that components  not only work seamlesly  together on one site but also support each other features - so many  3rd party modules extend each other functionality if used together on site. This is great as you dont have to pay for custom programming to make 3rd components compatible to each other. In dolphin situation is kinda different - developers dont say in public with which extensions are their extensions uncompatible even if they know - I THINK THIS INFORMATIONS SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN PRODUCT DESCRIPTION IN MARKET - so people will be aware their extensiuon will not work with other they already have. .. NOw people dont know so u buy extension .. found out it dont work with other you have installed ... and becasue 99% people have here non refund policy you either loose your money or are forced to pay developer for custom programming. ANd thats not all - custom programming is usually not included to default product installation so every other user who ran in problems with incompatibility have to pay again and again ... for things developer already did. Because changes are not included to product default - you heading another thing - ypou have to hire porogrammer every time dolphin and one or second or third.... components are upgraded. THat way you gonna raise your investments to thousands over years....

Only Ibellodelweb seems to start making his extensions cross compatible ... for now with 2 other external components .. ands I think not most popular ones but good on him...at least good start -  but unfortunately I dont see any other activity in this matter from other devs.Also MOdzz seems to also care and fixing  compatibilities time from time. I think developers should made their modules available for free to each other so other developers can access them and can make their extensions more compatible. If extensions  - at least popular ones gonna be cross compatible and support each other than I dont mind higher dolphin extension pricing. But combination of high prices and uncompatzibility is a killer combination for most ordinary people ..

Another thing is that even throught I think D 7.1.1 is on a good way still ... many dolphin functionalities are not proper and some features simply dont work correctly  - all that nionfunctional stuff was moved to dolphin 8 roadmap .. but dolphin 8 .. before we get testwed and bugfixed version of that "monster" product its gonna be may 5 years bwith current speed in development - and at that bstage most things gonna be obsolete anyway ...

Forum actrivity: Well in one nthing ANdrew is right - there was a rush in forums at early stages of D7 as amount of bugs in that was unreal - so there been many asking why that or this not work etc.. NOw people calm down as from D7.1 I think is stable .. but still many features not work properly but stable and usable with 3rd patrty mods so thats one reason there is more quiet here. BUT also some people get kinda tired from neverending investments to dolphin - after people finished their sites with D6 make 3rd extenmsions wor properly, hired programmers .. than BOOOM start again from scratch nwith D7 - they was in situation to buy new template, new version of extensions and wait and wait for D7 to become usable .. which I believe become from version 7.1. Because most of people here are not rich bastards everybody think 3x if invest huge amount of money again if they invested already before to D6. ALso amount of newcomers is low .. especiall ones that keen help other people in community. I see personally only one relatively new person who have friendly attitude to help others ( of course AM nor talking abpiut old ones like Deano etc..) THat one person who have good potential for help and is friendly is  Prashank who seems to be really good person nand valuabla addition to community. I cant see anybody else - so while several active forum users are gone , only one come in ...

you have the option not spend anything, learn and do it yourself. For those that spend big $ on dolphin and don't make any returns with the site you guys are doing something wrong very wrong.

Prolaznik: Well my opinion is you have to actually born as good programmer/mathematician. If you dont have proper type of thinking for it .. you can lear whatever you want but still you gonna be always very bad programmer. Same as somebody have not brain to be a doctor and even if he study and learninmg - alweays will be only bad doctor. To seriously make good modules you have to have talent - like Modzzz certainly have that but I dont. nso I stay at bwhat AM good at. I understand code but AM not able to do programmimng itself... simply have no brain for that :-)

I dont want anything for free I just saying that if its gonna be better organized - especiall developers will be more cooperative between each other than its gonna be good for everybody. If in Joomla and WP area thats possible why not here ?

 You see... this is the sad "knowledge is power" attitude that will bring dolphin to its knees if it is not dealt with. I think it is irresponsible and damaging.

In my opinion people who invest that much on their site should get it done by a programmer and designer team from scratch, that way you can get what you want and no need to carry forward the old bugs of a cms. Just my opinion :)

 Thank you very much, i appreciate it 

You are welco,me Prashank - I think Im not only one who noticed you around and see your activity with help others. I wish more people like you around :-)

Drautenbach: Yes I agree with you... unfortunately thats how it works not only in Dolphin area. But usually people do it themselves as its we who accept that. If more people join together and try to make some changes I think its possible to change everything.. but people have to speak out and not be quiet and keep mouth shut..

 Cant say I agree with this statement at all. Thats a very general thing to say. Reverse the logic here and you're actually saying if you spend big $ on Dolphin it will make you lots of money... 

The main thing though, is no one is talking about what money they have or have not made, its about the time, money and the rest invested into the site, purchasing base modules, customising them and on and on and on... 

Support/upgrading rights on themes - modules question.

On the current topic and one of my angles of thought on 'a' problem with modules/themes that have either not been upgraded, or have been released as a 'new version' for 7.1...

In many market descriptions the modules / themes state something like 'all future versions of 7.0.x will be updated for free'

Of course, in a litteral sense - 7.0.x only goes up to 7.0.9 then it becomes 7.1

BUT we had Dolphin 6... that was dropped for Dolphin 7...

which will be dropped for Dolphin 8 (already been plugged before 7.1 was released!).

Surely, development and support should run right through the main version of Dolphin released???

7.1 was NOT a complete rebuild. It had some fixes, some visual changes... a couple of new features... but it was and is still Dolphin 7.

I personally think developers should honor their customers and upgrade to 7.1 versions for free. Many do but some are choosing to cash in on the upgrade... 

It's not like they are losing money? They will still get new customers who turn to Dolphin for the first time. 

they may keep old customers as return customers for new products/themes....

At the moment though, my current feeling is that I will stay away from purchasing from developers who are trying to charge me twice just to use the product I already bought on the same version of Dolphin. 

Remember - a good customer relationship = free marketing and referrals when that customer recommends to others about their experience! Especially considering Dolphin is DEPENDANT on its forums and customer interaction! 

It all does make you wonder when I male a post one day and come back the next day and see it's still on the first page of recent posts.... Used to be when you make a post, you had to dive ten or fifteen pages deep to find it again....

Good point. I have always wandered about this also. On the freelance sites there are teams of guys in India who would code for you for months for $1000. For $10,000 they would probably be your personal programmer for life. Why do you guys invest so much in a cookie cutter CMS?

It's always been my take that Dolphin was for someone who didn't want to spend anything up front and just dig in and build it on their on. 

Oh lord lets not even get into money spent to have a good site,, jesus I kinda wish I had just bought a fishing house on the water now.

Spending money on a site is fine in my book, it sometimes cost money to offer a better product then the next guy, or to get things the way you want, or for what you have envisioned.,, far as saving money and doing it all yourself, well take me for instance I get ALOT of help from Pranshank and Newton and My site would not be where it is today without these guys, sure i could do most of it by myself if I just set down and did it, but I suffer from panic attacks and total freak outs sometimes and sometimes I know when it is just best to ask someone for help so it dont snowball into something that is just hopeless to do nothing more then lack of patience.. not to mention I use to have a bad habit of drinking on the weekends and then deciding to "fix" my site.. then wake up 2 days later and nothing works and  have no clue what it even was I was TRYING to do.

so yeah I get alot of help.. just to make things easier in the end

 Classic! 

Had a few tonight so WONT be going near my server...!

also avoiding the 'bargains' on ebay!

Don't know if any of you guys are familiar with Skyrim but I played it the other night after gettting home from a long night out. When I woke up the next day and loaded my save game my character was standing in the middle of nowhere in nothing but a loin cloth. I guess I sold all my armor... good times.

 Ok this is really funny. Can you show me some people who would do that? lol