UBBDEV:  What is your background and how long have you been on the web?

Dan Marlin:  My life ended when I saved enough money to get a Sears Super Pong game. That of course led me to the Atari 2600 and the beginning of bigger an better electronic gizmos. That's how it all started for me some 20 years ago. I have since graduated from games to computers and by trade am a LAN/WAN Administrator and Project Manager with over 10 years experience. In February 2000 I left AT&T to start MyDivX.com.

UBBDEV:  How did you brainstorm the idea behind "MyDivx"?

DM:  In December of 99 I started to see some Usenet and IRC talk on a new Video Codec called DivX ;-). Naturally I thought it was somehow related to the failed "Circuit City" attempt of trying to push a disposable DVD format. As the next few weeks progressed more information started to spring up on exactly what the format was about. In this early stage of DivX information on the Codec was pretty hard to come across. This is what prompted me to create MyDivX.com. Our hopes are to create a single community for DivX MPEG information, so that others may find it easier than it was for me just a few months ago.


UBBDEV:  What was your reason for purchasing the ubb for your site?

DM:  We looked at a lot of Bulletin Board type solutions available on the web. We then compared, Features, Support, Easy-of-use, Scalability among other things. The only solution that featured all of the above and much more was UBB. Plus we were were sold on the fact of such a large base of developers, such as www.ubbdev.com. They help to continue to improve on an already outstanding product.

UBBDEV:  What do you like and dislike most about the ubb?

DM:  The best feature of the UBB is the simplistic easy of use. The layout is straight forward and easy to follow for even the newest of newbies.

I only have one dislike which would be the lack of a one button backup solution that should be included with UBB. For me this is a major feature that UBB should not be without.


UBBDEV:  What do you do to keep your site "fresh" and what do you recommend to keep people coming back for more?

DM:  Two words "Constant Vigilance". In a news hungry society fresh content is king. Post constant updates whether it is news or site oriented. Another key factor is involvement. People want to feel part of a bigger or growing community so make sure you have knowledgeable moderators in place to answer questions on a daily if not hourly basis. At MyDivX.com UBB plays a major part in creating such a community, and will play an even bigger role in our future.

UBBDEV:  Name the modification to your ubb that you like the best  and name the modification your users like the best ?

DM:  CYM Private Message is my absolute favorite Mod. This brings together that interaction that I feel is necessary for that "Community" feel. Looking on the horizon I am very excited on the upcoming PM 3.5 with the added feature of being able to send an "Instant Message" to any registered user that is currently on the Boards.

Our users Favorite Mod has to be "Who's Online" as it is the second most viewed page on our forums. It must be the fascination of being able to snoop on other user's to see which forum they are currently on.

UBBDEV:  Are there any "tricks of the trade" you'd like to share that any ubb owner can use to improve the success of their site?

DM:  One of the major MOD's I highly recommend is using "Latest Posts", this extracts the last XX user defined number of posts from the UBB database and displays them on a page. On MyDivX.com this is used on our Frontpage. This way the users coming to the site see the latest posted topics. They can then click on any of topics of interest and go directly to it without having to browse the forums.

UBBDEV:  What are your future plans for your site?

DM:  Our goals are to continue to expand our user base and develop partnerships that coexist with our ever expanding business model. We also are in need of securing a partnership with a host provider, as our 20-30% growth per month has even taken us by surprise.

After that it's all about the users. Listening to there needs and wants and trying to keep them informed.