Forums that have been bought and did better than before?

Do they even exist?

Because let's face it, despite all the companies who claim to make money from running forums and all the forum management experts out there, 99% of forums that are sold seem to die a quick death after they change ownership. Everything Internet Brands and Vertical Scope ever bought comes under this, and the sold vbulletin set up and other admin forum someone bought died as well.

So here's a thought. Has a forum ever been successful after a change in ownership, as in the new owner turned a dying community round and made it into a big board level success? Has this ever really happened, because I've never seen it. Hell, is there a company whose forums (all the ones in their network) are still mega successful even after the buyouts?

 

You're looking at one here. Word to @Brandon

 

Well, yeah, Admin Talk was bought and made better, but is it the only forum out there that ended up like this?

And are there any Internet Brands like companies who both buy out forums and are actually skilled at managing them?

 

I haven't been following Internet brands' buy outs - what forums have they bought out? Did the activity slip after they took over? In terms of, a lot of users left, and jumped ship to other forums? I know Lee Dodd as bought out a few forums and made them better. @WEfail as well can be in this category.

 

i am curious to know this as well.

I've only heard about Internet Brands in regards to Vbulletin but supposedly they are this huge mega million corporation yet i know little to nothing about them.

 

Well, there was this car forum they bought where 99% of active users jumped ship due to them changing forum software and what not, it's been covered a few times online. And go down their aquisitions list:

http://www.internetbrands.com/our-brands/

A lot seem to be big boards who've lost much of their acitivity. Went to one of their Mustang forums, and it said just seven things were updated/posted in 24 hours. For a forum nearing big board status, not too impressive.

And on many others, same story. Most of them have lost much of their activity and loyal community. Some had less than 10 posts in 24 hours, others none at all. It seems after buying these forums, IB just lets them rot to be honest. I see no involvement at all from the company.

 

What software were they using prior to the buyout by Internet brands? That's really a tough loss, and really, blame that on the ownership. Because a forum software move can make or break the community. It seems to me they went the wrong way of doing things - and not keeping an eye on what they users were saying. Thus, their downfall of the community.

 

They were using custom software. But as you know, this is Internet Brands who bought them, and they seem to try and convert everything they buy to vBulletin whether it helps the community or not.

 

Surely they're probably feeling the hit with their ad money?

 

Maybe, although I hear quite a few advertisers are kind of moronic and only care about 'views' rather than actual activity. Because hey, a million bot and random guest views that don't translate into an active site looks more impressive than a lower amount of dedicated users to some clueless company.

Nothing annoys me more than when someone keeps a dead forum running for ad money.

 

I have sold to both VS and IB (my old sites here)

There continues to be a huge disconnect between the large corporations / media companies like IB & VS vs the small timers like me.
I have 100k to invest, they have 20 million+ to invest. I need my investments to work so I have to remain focused on the sites or stand the risk of them failing.
I have acquired and had sites fail because of community uprising but I have acquired large sites that took off even better, see MiataTurbo & RCCanada. Now, Both those sites I purchased but MT I sold to IB. Traffic appears up now on MT but I have heard rumblings of discontent from my old staff. I do support IB in their venture so I try not to get involved and always tell my former volunteers they need to communicate with IB and that is where I think these sites start to fail. The corporations are bound by red tape, shareholders and rules. So where I used to make things happen quickly just like Brandon here can, the large corps are slow to respond and sometimes just don't.

I would say that some of my smaller sites that were sold to IB have fallen off but the others continue on, maintaining. There is no doubt traffic is up on the larger sites but the small ones are not worth their time and engergy I imagine.

The same applies to VS. The sites I sold continue on and haven't really grown, they just exist in the same capacity.

There are some very valid opinions about both VS & IB. One very common expressed one is that they are forum killers. Do I agree with that opinion, yes and no. I believe that a solid stable site with a good core member base and staff will continue to exist & thrive. The short comings of the large corps are what stifle the growth part.

I see no problem selling to these corps if the ship you are sailing is in good shape, it should sail itself with or without you. Broken search, broken links, pages , removing staff privileges because of corporate mandate is their fail to live with. When you have 2 forum managers handling 150 sites, there is no way to be up to speed on what is happening.

I am proud to say I never sold a pump & dump, my sites were ran by amazing volunteers and continue to do ok to this day.

 

I've seen this happen when a site was bought in my niche, the new owner addressed the members stating he would invest time into the site, make updates, bring in new features and months later nothing. It wasn't IB but it was another of those small companies that buy out forums just to monetize them.

 

If this forum is an example, then I say GREAT JOB because its a hard thing to do. I have purchased one forum before and took it over, I changed the name and other stuff and it went completely dead. I got it for a cheap price though. I don't often see forums that become active after being bought out.

 

Why the name change though? That explains why things went dead and all. What were the stats on the forum?

 

I've bought forums that have done very well after I took them over, like my history forum for example. And, I've bought ones that didn't do so well, like the car forum that I sold to Rick just a few months after I bought it. I think it depends as much on the people in the forum as the ones who took it over. Sometimes, no matter what you do, the members are going to burn it down. In cases like I've seen from Internet Brands especially, though, the forums suffer more from neglect than anything else.

 

And here, too. www.codforums.com was bought by yours truely, and has grown exponentially.

I have. A few times.

 

Could you name some of those forums? Because I'd love to see some more that have done better after a buyout, and that's what this topic is for.

 

Since April 2010, a popular forum called BlackOpsForums grew to these numbers: 42,235 Threads, 522,522 Posts, 28,016 Members

It was bought out in November, then changed domains, and management in 2011, then bought again in Oct 2011 as MW3Forum.

Then, I find out just today, trying to do a archive.org search, that the site moved into a site called COD247. Niiiice domain.

Today's stats: 73,660 Threads, 922,115 Posts, 42,499 Members

Close to a million.

 

What did you do to grow CODForums? How many users do you have login on average each day? Thanks.

 

CODForums has 3,000 Twitter Followers, and 235 Facebook fans (I'm looking to expand that in the future).

When I bought CODForums, it was around these numbers: 1,111 members, 445 threads, and 1,569 posts. It's now at these numbers: 2,179 threads, 6,080 posts, and 2,948 members.

As for an average of how many people log in everyday:

The average at this point is 10 - 15 users per day. But I can turn that into more if there was a beautiful skin. Maximum users online in a single day? 25. Average posts per day is 10 -15 per day. Maximum is 51. The highest was 107, but we all know why that was the case: Spam.

Here is the stats chart right now....