mac wrote:I don't understand what tapatalk expects from the changes they've imposed. Have they increased advertising revenues somehow or are there other benefits for them, one wonders? I wasn't aware of that website's existence but I wonder if websites are largely out of fashion anyway, their day mostly over?
I hadn't heard of them either until a member joined here on LAL, using tapatalk - just before all this takeover nonsense happened with FreeForums. Can't remember that member's name now - or where the post was/is here
*, but they only ever posted that one time. We never heard any more from them. Some of us had replied in the thread, welcoming them to the forum and each saying that we'd never heard of it either.
Seems now it's a huge conglomerate that's been in operation for many years - dealing [mainly] in mobile phone communications - though they appear to have a lot of fingers/fists in lots of different pies:
From Wiki: Tapatalk is an application to allow access to Internet forums on mobile devices,[1] developed by Tapatalk, Inc.
Tapatalk is primarily designed to provide improved forum access for mobile platforms over access provided by the forum software itself. The application was originally designed for Android[citation needed] but now also supports iOS and Windows Phone. Tapatalk allows the user to have a unified interface to access multiple forums at the same time.
Forum software systems supported by Tapatalk are: phpBB3, vBulletin, xenForo, IPBoard, Simple Machines Forum, MyBB, bbPress, Kunena, Vanilla, ASP Playground, and Drupal. In addition, 'Conversr' (the integrated forum of Composr CMS) allows for Tapatalk support[2] via the installation of an official addon.
Thing is, both FFs and prophpbb forum hosts already had a perfectly satisfactory built-in program for accessing all their forums from mobile phones! It worked fabulously without any problems/complaints from anyone before this enforced takeover.
Loads of people access their forums & blogs etc from their phones - but also loads of people don't - nor have they any desire in doing so. Tapatalk are not interested in the desktop side of things at all. Moreover, they claim to "provide improved forum access for mobile platforms" ---
BS! There is widespread evidence all over the place showing that since their involvement, previous perfectly-working systems have now deteriorated drastically - and continue to do so. The complaints and frustrations continue and they have created ruin and heartache for many long-term-running forums, small or large.
They do seem intent on grabbing more and more in an attempt at expanding their market niche, and yes, they appear to get a lot of their income from sponsoring adverts, etc.
As I posted in that link above, with reference to LAL and the reason for moving to a different host - my msg to tapatalk:
* ETA: I have since found the relevant thread:
https://lightafterlife.forumotion.com/t35-stringofpearls