Shoutbox

quote:

---

Originally posted by MeEtc
I just re-read what I had written here 2 and a half years ago, and I see that the only prediction that hasn't happened yet is the second re-sale of Plus. The community is mostly gone, the volunteers (mostly) don't give a crap anymore, many of the volunteers have left, nobody trusts the owners, and the owners don't communicate.

Congratulations Yuna! You have succeeded in destroying the reputation of your product.

---

At first I refused to let myself jump to conclusions. Everybody was up in arms about the new ownership, but I decided to let it play out. Adam, I re-read this thread every time a new post is added and have been noticing it as it's happened. I have met some great people here and now they are all gone. The community is gone. No more relationships will be formed, no more marriages announced, no new Plus! kids and no more passings of people we knew or cared about.

Instead of being used as a resource, we have been used as cheap tech support. I think everyone is now prepared for the inevitable end to these forums. It can't all be blamed on Yuna, as WLM usage itself has sharply decreased. However, Plus! development would still be growing strong if it had the community support behind it.

As I have said from the start (first with the introduction of Vanessa and then Nathalie) what we have lacked is communication. No news on what's being planned and no input from users. We don't need someone spouting PR lines, we need someone with actual knowledge of both the software and what the community wants.

Due to the decline of the userbase  I have mentioned, I don't give it too long before Plus! is sold, fulfilling everything you have said. I can not say however whether this will kill Plus! entirely, or be it's rebirth

I logged in today because I didn't have mIRC on my new machine and wanted to get onto IRC. Surprised to see the site still here.. I think that resonates with what you folk are saying

AFAICT not many people use Messenger Plus anymore anyway when more an more people use social Media to interact with there friends.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hanki
AFAICT not many people use Messenger Plus anymore anyway when more an more people use social Media to interact with there friends.

---

This is what I have been saying for a long time now. Cyril sold at the best possible time!

quote:

---

Originally posted by matty

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hanki
AFAICT not many people use Messenger Plus anymore anyway when more an more people use social Media to interact with there friends.

---

This is what I have been saying for a long time now. Cyril sold at the best possible time!

---

And now Messenger! Live is being literally killed off as a product as well....

Very sad times.

I've used MsgPlus for 8 odd years. I lurked in the forum for so many years and sometimes posted asking for help.

I stopped using MsgPlus in 2010 it must have been before this take over. Only reason was due to less use of MSN messenger due to the increase of social media. But still I always enjoyed this forum, i enjoyed the characters on here, the collection of good people.

Seems a dreadful shame another independent product, a fine community has been butchered by a new company which doesnt even seem interested in talking with its users

Wow, its really been almost 3 years since I posted this? Feels like a lot longer. Hey Yuna, you you have any download, install and usage statistics? Patchou used to post these quite frequently, I'd be interested in comparing how well your so-called product is failing.

Patchou has managed to support himself and his project without forced ad-ware for 8 years prior, and now you've removed that freedom.

For what it's worth, I still use Plus! for WLM version 4.83, the last version credited as made by Patchou. I have never downloaded or installed your software nor do I have any intention for the future. This tag that I have means nothing. There's been brief testing periods in September 2011 and September 2012 for Plus!-WLM and only one beta period in March 2012 for Plus!-Skype. Your UI continues to be crap, the community is dead, and the number of one-off users asking for help has also severely dwindled.

Your parent company's business is advertising, marketing and online publicity

quote:

---

Originally posted by http://www.msgplus.net/About-Us
Messenger Plus! became a market.com brand in July, 2011. Market.com brings together the best in ecommerce, epayments and emarketing solutions, providing all the needed services for a successful ebusiness. For more information, visit www.market.com

---

(mirror)

The Canadian office is conveniently located in the same office Patchou originally helped you set up. We all know there is an office in Isreal, as has been mentioned before, and there is conveniently an address for Israel on market.com (Oh and go back to school, the street name is spelt wrong). A quick search of that address brings up another company, ClickTale, based around online marketing and analytics. It looks like a really fancy building too. Most of the addresses are also shared by a company called XT-Commerce, an online payments merchant. And hey, whats that in the page footer? Exhibit A, B, C, D, and finally E.

So what's all this mean?I have a striking suspicion that you're using Messenger Plus and its ad-ware/spyware to harvest data from the people using it to support more and more advertisers, or otherwise selling the data to 3rd parties. Let's take a look:

quote:

---

Originally posted by http://www.market.com/privacy-policy
Every time you visit and use the Site we may record certain information such as your interaction with the Site, the pages read, movement from page to page, your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser information and application numbers, referring page, cookies, geographical location, date and time, etc.

However, if you wish to take advantage of special services that we may offer from time to time, you may need to provide certain information and this statement (as may be amended from time to time) shall apply as well as the terms of use and privacy guidelines specific to such services, where available.

When you sign up, fill out a form, comment, send us an e-mail or ask us to respond to you by email, or when you communicate with us in any other way ("Communication"), we retain your e-mail address if provided and the information that you have included in the respective Communication as well as our responses to such Communication. We may associate such information with information received from other channels such as your Site usage information.

---

So yes, you do collect information from anyone visiting your site, and you keep track of what each user does via their email address (when provided). So what do you do exactly with this data you're collecting?

quote:

---

HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION

We may use the information collected to optimize performance, improve usability, provide additional or customized offerings, track status indicator, make sure things are working properly, enhance the experience on the Site and for use in aggregate for commercial purposes such as marketing, promotions etc.

We may share information internally as well with third parties, such as trusted suppliers, business partners, advertisers and search engines. However, unless specifically indicated in this document, such information is collected and shared without any association to your personally identifying information so that you remain anonymous.

---

So yes, you most definitely are collecting and sharing your data for purposes of more advertising. you are in the business of doing business. Your sole purpose is to basically spy on the general population, and sell whatever information you can siphon from us at a profit to you. Is it theft? Nope, because taking our information is our payment to you to use Plus. And that, IMO, is outright scum.

Oh, and I took a screenshot of all your webpages instead of providing links to them so none of your SEO crap gets here.

It’s a pity, but you’re not going to change anything. Yuna will never take advice because they don’t respect our opinions, despite many of us being respected developers, designers and so on and so forth. This forum was a huge part of my life and it’s got me to where I am today and I’m thankful for that, but this is not the forum you or I signed up to so the best thing we could do is stop using it and keep in touch with people we know in other ways.

I guarantee you that this server will be shut off soon. Without explanation it’ll disappear and the hundreds of thousands of collective hours we’ve spent on here will all be gone.

this place has changed, man.

(what a time for me to randomly check msgplus.net)

Awesome letter MeEtc, share the opinion too.

Incredible even a rep from Yuna couldn't reply to your letter and just spammed the topic.