Why did I create "Vovio" instead of using WordPress?

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Joe Crescenzi
Staten Island, NY Posted: 8/30/2014 12:36:00 AM

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Right now, this site is a worthless pile of crap. It's also the most amazing pile of crap I've ever developed.

That's because my goal wasn't to create a great site, but to create the kind of tools I need to build great sites. I have always a tendency to reinvent the wheel, and Vovio is the wheel the way I want it.

I said to myself, why should I write my own blogging software when WordPress and Blogger are free, and they have a thousand more features, and there's literally over a million plugins out there to make it even better.

I was one of the first people to develop workable web based BBS software over 15 years ago, in fact I wrote 4 completely different platforms back in the 90s that were pretty slick for that time. I didn't market them, but I used them for a few sites and mostly tinkered with the code.

When WordPress and Blogger became popular, I tried them both. Even though they have more features than my old BBS platforms, I hated giving up the freedom of using my own code. It just drove me nuts. I wanted a good content manager, and a good blogging platform, and I also wanted a traditional BBS. Everyone knows WordPress and Blogger are fantastic blogging platforms and content managers, but the developer inside me wanted more.

The result is Vovio, a BBS / Content Manager / Blog / Book engine that although it's still a pile of crap, it's my pile of crap and I can make it do anything I want. Although it lacks 90% of WordPress and Blogger's features, it does do a lot of things I could never do with them, such as managing hundreds (or thousands) of sites at the same time, from a single control panel, on a single server (or a bunch of servers).

The methods I've used in the engine itself are unorthodox, complicated, yet simple at the same time.

In this test, I'm running the platform on a test server with about 100 or so domains. I've turned off the ability for anyone but me to post, but I'll open it up after I've finished testing it, and after moving it to a brand new server.

The cool thing is this is just plain fun.

When it's done, I will use the same code, database, server and IP for almost 700 sites... The sites will be very diverse, but for the ones that will allow user registration and content submission, they will share the same logins and passwords. Some sites will share content, others will be unique.

I intentionally will be using domains with zero traffic, so I can test it without a heavy load, and without many people (other than myself) seeing it. If the whole thing crashes, nobody but me will know.

What I really like about it, is that I wrote a BBCode compatible scripting engine, but added my own special tags that will make the kinds of blogs I intend to launch even easier to manage.

Some of the people who have seen it have asked...

1) How does it make money?

It doesn't. If I wrote it to make money, it wouldn't be fun.

2) Is there a plan to sell or license the code?

No. If I did, I wouldn't have the freedom to change it without worrying about how to update everyone to the newest code.

3) What's under the hood?

It's ASP.NET based off my own servers, with the database currently in Azure. The cool thing is although it's slightly slower because the database is potentially thousands of miles away from the web server, it's actually pretty quick. I'm on the fence about whether I will eventually move the database local for speed, or move the web server to Azure too. In either case, I like the security and peace of mind of Azure. Azure has great security and point in time backup / restore options.

4) What about the front end?

I'm using Bootstrap from Twitter for the front end, but the cool thing is there are almost no HTML tags in the engine itself. Like WordPress, I created a slick template system which means I can drastically change the look and feel in seconds. Unlike WordPress and Blogger, I am using a modular approach to my templates. So, many of the elements on the page have their own individual templates.

5) What's your favorite TV show of all time?

Star Trek.

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