VerticalScope Inc Headed toward Bankruptcy?

An interesting bit of information combining these two points, while building my directory out, I came across Scout Motors Inc. Per Wikipedia, it's an American division of German automotive manufacturer Volkswagen Group and a member of the Volkswagen Group companies.
I knew I'd heard of it before, but it took me a minute...then I remembered that Scout is a rebirth of the International Harvester Scout, but EV and off-road focused.

It is a small forum, but it'll be interesting to monitor it to see if an automotive brand can create a meaningful community or if members will break off to smaller model niche communities.
This one might hang together. Some of course will scatter to social media, but the offroad community is often a very tightly knit group, and they tend to stick together. And some of the newer, smaller companies (even given the corporate ownership here) are more willing to have a direct line to customers for product ideas and support, rather than have to filter through so much noise on the Internet.

That might actually be a way for a forum developer to make inroads with companies--they could sell companies with the idea of creating and hosting their own forum. It could be partially a selling tool (press releases, etc.), but owners knowing their input could shape future products, or get a more direct line to support, is a winning combination. But the way larger companies and corporations think, to them it's 1) another expense that pisses off shareholders, and 2) it's something needing supervision (moderation team) which they may not feel is worth their time.

While most are not XenForo, I can think of a handful of companies whose products I own who are hosting their own forums.

Anecdotal:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
roadbikereview is a bit of a shame. I haven 't been able to log in for years but the pages say copyright "Verticalscope 2026."
 
roadbikereview is a bit of a shame. I haven 't been able to log in for years but the pages say copyright "Verticalscope 2026."
I just went there and it works for me...

 
One forum I signed up for over 20 years ago, and posted in just a few times, treats me like I'm a new member, despite having existing posts. So it's kind of silly how members who were part of the forum's initial membership are just treated like unwanted cattle. Yet another casualty of a great forum that sold out to VS. (@Mr Lucky might even be familiar with the forum...)
 
Are they still trying to utilize AI to generate content? A few of the sites I hit up as a resource had mention of fora Fred or something, that seemed like it was going to beging bumping threads with no content and maybe fake crowd replies?
 
I've never seen it in the few forums I visit. But I also keep the ad blocker running, so that might be blocking some of the AI slop.
 
Back
Top Bottom