Will UNA survive

I've made the comment before, so why not make it again. I think UNA will probably survive because (in my opinion) it's being supported by a large number of dating sites that are well established in the marketplace. I did a search some time ago and found that hundreds of dating sites were using Dolphin. My crystal ball suggests that the owner(s) of those sites wanted to take their sites to a new level and UNA came about as a result. Thus Dolphin was made redundant, as was Oxwall. Once the free Oxwall platform had all the bugs removed by hundreds, or possibly thousands of people who were beta testing the product without their knowledge, it just closed down.

There's a web site out there that can track the number of sites using a particular script, but I can't remember what that site is. If anyone knows, please tell me. When I ran the script about three years ago, it told me that around 800 dating sites, mostly in Russia, were using Dolphin. I'd love to run that script now to see how many people are actually using UNA and who those people are.

What interests me is the effort being put into UNA by Boonex and third-party developers despite UNA having an almost ZERO percent rating as a social networking script. Once again, my crystal ball tells me that the "public" version of UNA is nothing more that a beta testing script and the development is basically controlled by a conglomerate of UNA devotees running all those dating sites out there. That's what happened with Oxwall and in my opinion, Dolphin. 

If I'm correct, Boonex is a "one-man-band" run by an Australian person living in country New South Wales. The site has a few contributors, but I'm guessing they're not on a salary.  It really doesn't matter how big the staff is, or how they're paid, but Boonex isn't a big organization. If I recall, the directors are the owner and his family.

Dolphin was originally a script called aeDating, but the company decided to drop it because the dating market had transformed to the point where sales for the script were almost ziltch. Boonex acquired it, changed the name to Dolphin and made most of the script public domain. Thus it's now forked to Cheetah. When they dump it next year, Dolphin will become a thing of the past and UNA will become Boonex's only  show-pony.

I'm guessing that the owner of Boonex and UNA makes enough money to survive and he'll continue with the product for long time. Whether UNA develops as a script you want, will depend on whether the dating site folk who actually support it want the same features you want.

Don't hold your breath!

I wrote this piece to the dev's (Boonex/UNA) 

It seems they are dragging there feet and concentrating on the same things they did with Dolphin. Will they hear the piece probably not. They seem to have a real issue with update deliveries and promises...

What needs to happen in order to allow updates to happen securely? is incremental update that are secure and stable. Not wait till they "BELIEVE" all the kinks are worked out on one large release. Its much easier to deal with issues and script errors on small incremental levels. Than advance to further updates, as well being in small increments.

If you look around you will see this is the approach that many outside Scripting companies do, to include places like Microsoft, Linux and others. this is the purpose of a connected update system. They simply make the repair/update and the fix is done through updates. No long waits... I have a few scripting companies I work with that also do it this way. There is never a issue upon release. If there is??? they fix it quickly, then release the update.

updates first, then cosmetic and eye candy after. then introduce whatever thereafter. This was a big issue in Dolphin, which drove people away or caused a lot of headaches. There was never no concentration on certain areas. A lot of bouncing around, never really fixing underlying problems within the script.

Dolphin is still a great script and they could have gone so much further with it. they chose not to and opened a new can of warms which seems to have the same impact as Dolphin received.

Here is my opinion/Observation, since using UNA:

• Una script is very unorganized. Meaning to many places to have to go to in studio to do a simple change. Nothing is in one place in many aspects.
• The feel of UNA is very 90's. The blocks and module setup is very outdated, in comparison to even some of the others I am using. Almost reminds me of a old MySpace type setup.
• Tech support and assistance is very scarce and random. Sometimes weeks before an answer received.
• Updates are slow, to include updates being buggy themselves.
• UNA Mobile feels like its just a browser window connected to the UNA Desktop site. Its not its own animal like other scripts have. (Example being: Facebook desktop and Facebook mobile... Two very different apps (Totally different scripts). This would also include Messenger)
• Delays in script updates causes module writers to become impatient do to long repairs or wait times, to the script.
• There is no manual or editing information on how to use or do a certain task within UNA, both on studio side or member side, which makes using UNA difficult at times. (A full working manual should have been released when UNA even started, then updated as needed.)
• There is a lot of hype that comes from videos and word of mouth by UNA Dev's, but nothing ever surfaces on the topics discussed.

What saddens me is these are just a few of the same issues Dolphin had...

UNA could have a shot at being the best Script out there, if they work on order and organization, as well as technical aspects of the Script to include use of it. I almost feel lost when using some aspects of UNA due to there is no structure to the support and know-how.

My thoughts on Corrective actions to UNA:

UNA Scripting:

(Should have a dedicated crew working the script continuously)

1. Write Script
2. Troubleshoot make repairs of Script (Small incremental)
3. Release updates bi-monthly to monthly
4. Release to users (with ongoing updates as above)

Templates:

(Should have there own dev crew working continuously)

1. Write/Work on templates (Current and new coming)
2. Troubleshoot scripting and update (Small Incremental)
3. Release Template updates monthly

New additions, content and major changes to modules:

(This should have its own Dev crew working continuously)

1. Take ideas and listen to members/users
2. write new script modules
3. make updates as needed (per main script changes and versions).
4. Either release updates in main Version script or bi-weekly separately.