Forum Insider: Forum Insider -> Interview with Josh Williams - IP.Board Developer

To get us started with some great content here at Forum Insider, I've been in touch with developers at the top forum software companies, as well as some of the administrators of huge online communities such as Gaia Online and OffTopic.com to get an insight into who they are and what they do, and their views on the forum software industry.

The first interview we've completed is with Josh Williams from Invision Power Services. Josh started out developing the company's IP.Gallery product, but has since moved on and worked on the (cancelled) IP.Nexus project, and most recently the release of IP.Board 3. Here's what he had to say:

Can you tell us a little about yourself, and what you're interested in outside work?

I'm 28 years old, I lived most of my life in Oklahoma, but I've also lived in California and now Virginia. I have a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and an Associates Degree in Math.

Outside of work, I spend a lot of time watching shows on the Science Channel, Discovery Channel, etc about astronomy and the like. I suppose you could say I have a general interest in all Science, but Astronomy is definitely the focus for me. I also play a lot of games, I try to play a lot of the big games that come out ever year,
Uncharted 2 was my favorite in 2009. I also try to catch the big movies in theater, saw Avatar last month and it was great. I'm also addicted to Lost, can't wait for the final season to start next month.

How did you first get involved with forum software?

I think it was 1998 that I got started with forums, which seems like a lifetime ago, I was working on a website for game creation software and wanted to create a forum for it. There were not a whole lot of options back then, there was basically UBB and then a number of free forum solutions. I started off with an old style threaded forum, and from there bounced between a few of the fancy new 'linear' forums, like UltraBoard, BoardPower, and a few who's names I can't remember now. I started doing a little modding on BoardPower, which is where I ran into Matt, who was working on a PM mod if I remember correctly. So I've been following, using, and developing forums in one capacity or another for a little over 10 years now.

What in particular interests you about forum software?

It would have to be their ability to create communities, which is of course the point of having a forum in the first place. I think it's great that no matter how niche your interests may be, there's almost certainly a thriving forum for it out there where you can talk with people that share that interest.

What would you say is the most commonly requested feature by your users in 2009? and what do you expect it might be in 2010?

I think the features we hear about the most are SEO related and Social Networking related. Considering how much buzz there is around both of those terms, it's easy to see why so many people think they need features that fall into those two categories. As for 2010, I'm sure both of those will continue to be among the most requested types of features, but I expect we'll get a lot more requests about integration with other services.

What feature or features added in your most recent release are you most excited by?

I think the most exciting thing about IP.Board 3 is the new framework that we developed for it. It's so much easier now to extend and modify, which is great for us and for modification authors. I'm really happy with the first version of our hook system, I think it turned out really well, and we have a lot more planned for it.

Can you tell us about any upcoming features? Anything you think will particularly interest your users?

There's nothing too specific I can say, but like I hinted in the last question, I think it's safe to say that there are improvements to the hook system on the horizon. I'm really excited to see what our community will do with them!

Who do you consider to be your biggest competitors at the moment? and is there anything they are doing at the moment that interests you?

This is a tough one to nail down, since we have such a wide range of products now. To be perfectly honest, it's not something that I spend a lot of time thinking about either. We have more great suggestions from our community than we could ever have the time to implement, so it's not like there's a situation where we need to go look and see what a competitor is doing for ideas on our own software. I try to keep up with general trends more than specific software packages or services.

If you could go back change one thing about forum software before it became the de-facto standard, what would it be?

Actually, there's probably not a lot about the fundamentals of forum software that I think need changing. I think if we felt like there was something fundamentally broken about forum standards, we would probably just change IPB to fix whatever it was we didn't like. Forums are really very good at doing what they are meant to do, which isn't a surprise, there's well over a decade of best practices built into what we think of as a modern forum.


I'd like to thank Josh for responding so quickly to the interview request, and taking the time to answer our questions. It's great to learn a little about the people behind the software.

Please let me know if there's anyone else you'd like to see an interview with. We have a few more in the pipeline, but your ideas are always welcomed. Suggestions for additional, or alternative questions, are also welcome.