The OC Register's Ladera Post had a blurb in the online edition about the "marriage" between LaderaLife.com and LaderaMarketplace.com.

 
Photo by NANCY ELLICK, Copyright 2005, Orange County Register.

There was a wedding cake to celebrate the occasion. Ladera Marketplace is a partnership of some Ladera residents who formed a business called "The Flintridge Group, LLC".  The Post reported as follows:  

How did LaderaLife get involved with LaderaMarketplace?

David Jacobs, is a member of the Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) and is also the registered owner of the website for LaderaMarketplace.com.  While to most of us, this seems like an obvious conflict of interest, it's yet another way that LARCS continues to operate without oversight, transparency or proper ethical understanding.  The ethical problem with this is that David cannot objectively and  impartially represent the technology needs of all the residents of Ladera Ranch as Vice Chairman of the TAC, when he has a profit motive tied up in supporting the "marriage" of those two enities.  But the bigger problem is that lack of disclosure of this information by David and by LARCS. 

What does the TAC do for us?

The TAC's stated purpose is to "support the goals of Communication/Technology through information gathering and problem solving related to LaderaLife". 

Tell me how exactly they're helping solve LaderaLife problems when one of their members is working in his own interest to form a partnership with LaderaMarketplace?  Doesn't that, by its very nature interrupt the goal of having advertising, business partnerships and sponsorships for LaderaLife?  How do the business sponsors feel about this?

TAC committee positions are appointed by the developer-controlled LARCS board.  They are not elected or approved by any homeowner body, and they serve the interests of the developer, and in this case, themselves.  At least two members of LaderaLIVE have applied for and been declined positions on the TAC, even when only five seats of a possible seven in the charter were occupied.  At least one LaderaLIVE member has resigned from the TAC as a result of their decisions to support the developer's interests over the best interests of the community.

It's shocking that the entire TAC didn't resign over the re-launch of LaderaLife recently.  It suggests only that they either knew of the problems and were powerless or unwilling to do anything, or that they didn't know of the problems and they should have.

The questions for LARCS are:

1.  What business relationships do you have with your board members, officers, advisors or committee members and/or their spouses.

2.  When will you disclose the nature of the "semi-merger" between LaderaLife and LaderaMarketplace.com?

Most technology products change over time.  They become more widely used, the R&D costs get shared and the knowledge to create them becomes more commonplace.  Such is the case with building online web communities, web portals, dynamic websites and content management systems.

My friend "Daddio" made some of these analogies at the last LARMAC board meeting, and it deserves a place here on the Underground. 

In 1983 you could buy The DynaTAC 8000X phone, which weighed 28 ounces, was 13 x 1.75 x 3.5 inches in dimension, boasted one hour of talk time and eight hours of standby time and featured a LED display.  It has a 3 watt antenna because cell towers were so distant, and no one knew about brain cancer back then.

Cost = $3995.00

Today, you can get a V220 that weighs in at 3.7 ounces, is 3.3 x 1.7 x 0.9 inches and has a 4 hour talk time.

Cost = $0.00

Back in 1987, you could pick up a Macintosh SE with 1MB of RAM, two 800k dual sided floppies and an internal SCSI hard disk with a mind-blowing 20MB of storage...

Cost = $3700.00

Today, you can get a Mac mini with a 1.25Ghz G4 processor, 256MB RAM, 40GB hard disk for the low-low price of:

Cost = $499.00

In the world of Community Intranets (or as the developer calls them, "Community Lifestyle Portals") you can get a site that has been marginally functional at best and completely broken at worst, at a cost of over $250,000 in the first year of operation (in 2000), or up to $430,000 in the 2004/2005 fiscal year. 

www.laderalife.com

Cost = $1,765,118.00

Or, you could have an interactive web community, using open-source, non-proprietary software, with very little licensing costs, and tier one hosting that is donated by residents, with rich message boards, live chat, private messaging (instead of yet another e-mail account with spam and viruses), and a full Content Management System that will allow club organizers to post their club content without necessary intervention from the site admins.

www.LaderaLIVE.com

Cost = $13.00  (cost to community = $0.)

That about says it.  The developer seems content with the numbers that they are being given by the so-called experts, and believe that it is completely appropriate to spend $431,836.00 or more a year of YOUR MONEY to operate their "lifestyle portal".

In a recent meeting with the developer, I was told that Rancho Mission Viejo and DMB (and of course Planned Community Intranets) have invested a lot of money in consultants (like PCI's Gary Myall who is featured on the main page of Prosum's website) and focus groups to determine what we as a community need.  The problem is that it appears to me money that was not well spent. 

The developer insists that no homeowner derived money was spent funding the current re-design of LaderaLife, but acknowledged that we are being charged a "nominal" $5000.00 a year to license the source code which is wholly owned by PCI.  We still pay PCI about $1200 a month for shared hosting at a Qwest data center in Burbank.  Remember, we are only one of four communities that is being charged.  (20k a year for licensing and 57k for hosting).  I'd love to see some more discussion on the message boards about the hosting costs and how outrageous they are for shared hosting.

It is a sad thing. So much hype and anticipation of the new re-launch of LaderaLife. Is this 3.0 by now? I am amazed at how we were told how much better the new site was going to be, only to be so disappointed in its delivery.

Here are some "features" that you may or may not have discovered:

1. The username/passwords are on the honor system for the first few days/weeks. You can log in as anyone and change their password and use their account.
2. The site is crushingly slow. I have been developing sites and apps in JSP with java component back ends for years now, and there are some simple ways to ensure that you get good performance. Doubtful that they were done here.
3. Replies to message board posts suggest that you type your responses inside a text box. I’m not sure what this is. Certainly, it is bested by the [quote] bbCode "quote" [/quote] capability that we have on Ladera Underground.
4. My wife’s birth year appears in the resident directory. Did she authorize this? Certainly not. Do the women of Ladera feel it is okay for the site staff to publicize their age?
5. Your address is publicized, along with a convenient link to a map. All of your family members are listed with you until you log in as them and change their preference to NOT be listed in the directory.
6. They are in violation of their own Privacy Policy on multiple counts!

This is all such a terrible way to manage a web property with so many PAYING users. We all need to demand accountability from the site owners and operators. We have a LARMAC board that is receptive and willing to work with us, but we need to make it clear that it is more than just a few who show up and speak to them who are concerned.

In the coming days, you will hear a list of ways that you can help us get across our message. Stay tuned and please get involved. It’s your $6.50 a month that is being spent and your choice to do something about it.  Please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it as you discover other problems/bugs/inconveniences of the new version and I will use your responses to help formulate our plans. 

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text73054 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

It was great to meet everyone last night! Thanks for coming to the LaderaUnderground Happy Hour(s) and sharing some good times with your neighbors. NKOTB and I would love to have you all back soon. The consensus from the crowd was that we should do this again.

There was some great conversation on all manner of topics: LaderaLife, Shopping, Handbags, Black Helicopters and secret government spy programs, Gambling, Real Estate, School Boundaries, Swim Diapers, etc. Ironically, I don't remember anyone talking about dog poop!

There was only one brawl between a couple of three-year-olds (you know who you are).

Thanks again to everyone who attended. You all are making LaderaUnderground a fantastic success!

A special thank you to webgeek for throwing down the whopping 6 hours it took to get this site live! You are our hero!

Next Happy Hour is targetted for a Sat. Night so that more folks can attend.