Internet Brands Acquires Mobile App Creator Forum Runner

LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire - Mar 7, 2012) - Internet Brands today announced the acquisition of Forum Runner (www.forumrunner.net), a mobile application that allows forum users to interact with online communities from mobile devices. Forum Runner will operate as part of Internet Brands' vBulletin software division.

"Mobile is no longer the future; it's the present," said John McGanty, general manager of vBulletin. "It's imperative for online forums to offer a good mobile user experience as they experience explosive growth in usage from mobile devices. Forum Runner gives forum sites an easy way of providing native iOS and Android mobile apps to their users."

Forum Runner is free to forum owners and very simple to install. It provides native iOS and Android mobile applications to forum users. Native mobile applications provide a number of advantages over accessing a forum using a mobile browser, including:

• Mobile-Optimized - Forum Runner displays forum content in a manner optimized for the smaller screens of mobile devices, providing major improvements in navigation and readability.
• Greater Speed - Forum Runner native apps streamline page rendering, providing a faster user experience.
• Better Engagement - Through the use of push notifications, users can be alerted whenever particular forums or threads are updated, drawing them back to a site.
• Photo Uploads - Forum Runner streamlines the posting of photos to a forum.

Forum Runner supports websites running a variety of forum software options including vBulletin. Support for all platforms will continue going forward, and Forum Runner will continue to publish and support its paid, customized branded versions of its applications.

ForumRunner can be downloaded and installed at www.forumrunner.net. It is compatible with vBulletin version 3.6 and above. Forum Runner sign-up and account management are built directly into the vBulletin Administrator Control Panel starting with vBulletin version 4.1.12.

Forum Runner bolsters vBulletin's mobile product offerings, providing an entry-level native mobile app alternative to vBulletin's premium, fully customized mobile solution, vBulletin Mobile Suite (www.vbulletin.com/mobile).

About vBulletin

vBulletin (www.vbulletin.com) is the world leader in forum and community publishing software. Customers have created vibrant communities for over 10 years on vBulletin's stable and mature platform. Developed with security, powerful administration features and speed in mind, it serves over 70,000 online communities with an international team. vBulletin is a division of Internet Brands, Inc.