vBulletin Mods

ChatBro is UGC tool for your site, which extends ability of content generation to the popular mobile messengers.

Add @chatbro bot to the active Telegram group chat and embed it into your site. Google will index the chat history and bring new participants to you!

Admins find it convenient to answer users questions by mobile phone using a VK/TG application:

https://www.vbulletin.org/forum/external/2016/04/2.gif

Features

• indexed by search robots
• reveals photo and video
• asynchronous loading - no influence exerted on your website
• mobile ready
• authentication via your website, Vkontakte or Telegram
• moderation by chat owner
• website chat synchronized with Vkontakte or Telegram chat

Conference chatting is better than chatting with operators

Unlike private chatting with consultants, the multi-user chat between all users and the administration appears to be more trustworthy. People communicate and see the admins' reaction and realize that the site service is functional and adequate.

There is nothing to stop one from private chatting with a client any more.

Increases search traffic and average time spent on the website

The chat history consist of unique text on your subject. Search engines index it and provide target traffic. Should you be the first one to submit unique content to the search engine, and the content matches a rare user query, you will hold the first position on this query.

Customization

Chat could be easily configured with plugin extended parameters.
You can choose color theme, size, initial state, etc.

Easy installation

After installing the plugin just name your conversation and choose messenger to syncronize with. It could be VK or Telegram.
Create conversation link in My Account section

Detailed instruction http://www.chatbro.com/en/documentation/#vbulletin4

More info http://www.chatbro.com/en/

v1.0.4:
New option: "Need to log in before sending messages"

v1.0.3:
Protection against CSRF attacks
Find your secretKey (optional) in "My chats" on chatbro.com (you must be logged)

v1.0.2:
Appearance parameters are added:

• Message block background color
• Message block text color
• Input block background color
• Input block text color

can you backport this for vBulletin version 3.8.x please. Thanks..

Does this use our servers or yours? What kind of server load does this cause ?

Will do it soon.

It is external service. It use our server and does not increase your server load at all.

Everything is sent on a non-encrypted channel (HTTP) - this really isn't a good idea.

We will add https soon.

I don't get how to start the conversation using the link you provide ... I don't see where to start it ...

1. Please click 'Log In' in the right top corner of chatbro.com. Choose authentication via Telegram or VK. Your chat will be synced with vk or tg depending on your authentication method. You should have an account in telegram or vk.

2. Click 'My chats'.

3. Enter conversation name and copy your chat path to vbulletin plugin settings.

We'll update plugin documentation to make this aspect more clear.

The idea that all chat goes through your server also worries me - how are we to be sure that it isn't being recorded? Why not allow us to connect to the third party services ourselves?

Why you worries that they are recorded? Chats are public and indexable by search robots. They should be recorded to be indexed.

You can download and save content on your side via JSON-RPC API, if you wish.

That presents a host of legal issues. Users do not expect their chats to be public. Nor are they granting permission in their accepting the terms of service and rules for their information to be hosted elsewhere.

There are no private user chats and data. It is site group chat. Content is public and indexable on your site.

I updated documentation with how to create your chat path.

I believe you're missing the point others are making... no other chat mod from what I know indexes "messages". No matter if chat for entire site, it's not actual content nor should it be (imho) and chat messages are typically considered private/personal.

I see what you wanted to achieve, a public chat for forum but until this has options to make private and not be indexed many may not choose to utilize it because many value privacy versus "public record" in my opinion. I recommend adding option to make entire site chat private for only forum members to see OR make it publicly indexed so owner can choose which they prefer - needs to be option in mod, not just robots.txt change because bad bots don't follow rules in robots.txt.