I am coming into this late, but have been using UBB since 2001, as well my forum currently has 54,100+ members. I have invested a lot in UBB to add features and fixes that are not currently available. (Thanks Gizmo)

My forum brings in a fair amount of income, enough to live off of, so monetization is important to me. Whether that means the custom ad spaces I have installed or the subscription side of things, this is part of keeping my forum viable. So I want to see a more robust subscription service one with more controls on how I can manage the payments. Unfortunately in my world Pay Pal is a problem. Many of my members will simply not use Pay Pal as well Pay Pal would not all me to expand because my focus is not supported by them. So the ability to drop in something like Authorize.net for payments would be great. I would like to make this as seamless as possible. Being able to handle my commercial vendors through the site's payment process would be great, but needs to be more robust. If they want to sign up to be a commercial vendor, they can do it through Subscribe but not everyone will use Pay Pal.

The Mobile platform support is a must, believe me, a month doesn't go by I don't look at other forum offerings that handle mobile viewing better. I consider taking the plunge and moving over too often because of the delays here. Incremental updates are fine, especially if they address the features and needs that keep my forum popular, but they have to happen.

The email suggestions are great, I use iContact right now because the UBB email system is just plain weak. If I can eliminate that expense and be able to stay in contact with all my users, and not just an affordable 15,000, that helps a lot. it's about giving people a single stop. My members are extremely loyal, we have done surveys and they spend days on the site, not just hours. If they can manage more though the site, like messaging and emails, the better for me. So a more robust email system would be great.

With that, the Shout Box is huge for a lot of my members, they love it. But lately the shout box is going in and out, not working randomly and no one seems to have an answer, other than the usually browser issues. These browser issues have to be addressed. Everyday I have to tell people their log in stopped working because of IE, so try Firefox or Chrome because the glitches in IE are outta my control. That is my number one issue... inconsistency in the platform with IE. Someone can log on today, not tomorrow, switch browsers they are back on. Unacceptable.

I would much rather more business based features being available because smiley faces don't pay the bills. Keeping people engaged, logged in and stable does. In my case, content is easy, so, I need people staying on the site and not being kicked off. Subscriptions work, so now I need to expand the control and options for managing them. Same with the ads. If i can add more revenue, I am more likely to stick around, but if another forum software is adding more revenue based features, at some point, even after 10 years of investment in UBB, it might be time to jump ship.

I have paid outside developers to combine my WP Database with UBB, as well I have added social logins, this stuff should be available natively, and not require a year's hosting to get it off the ground. UBB needs to be play better with these things, like Tapatalk which I get an email about every other week. I would just like to see UBB is moving forward in a direction that helps, and not just smiles. People really like the navigation and clean feel of UBB, so putting this stuff in the CP would be awesome.

Thanks,

EL,
Sniper's Hide