VerticalScope Inc Headed toward Bankruptcy?

[Mr Lucky]

I think that there's some delusion in the upper ranks that their AI bot, ForaFrank, is somehow going to save them.

That along with teaming up with Tollbit in order to sell their user generated content to train AI etc seems like a good move.

 

[Chris2]

That along with teaming up with Tollbit in order to sell their user generated content to train AI etc seems like a good move.

Was going to mention that. They blamed it all on AI. It’s infuriating what AI has done this year, but maybe there will be some recourse, if not too late. Hard going up against a multi-trillion dollar company though.

 

[ActorMike]

What a weird obsession to have with a company.

Stalker vibes.

What's weird is how one of the founders of this Canadian based company has been in the Grand Cayman Islands for years, while the company self-destructs. I'm not weird or a stalker, like you I've been involved in this space since the early days, before VS even existed. I come from a long line of entrepreneurs, and this is something that has caught my eye for a long time and as you may suspect, I'm not a fan of the company, leadership or the negative impact they've had on our industry.

Revenue decreased 17% year-over-year to $14.7M, there are meme coins on Solana with higher cashflow. The end is near, just remember, I called it first.

 

[GCT2007]

Say what you will about VS but none of us should hope for the demise of over a thousand communities and millions of members currently under their ownership and care.

 

[JamesBrown]

Say what you will about VS but none of us should hope for the demise of over a thousand communities and millions of members currently under their ownership and care.

I’d actually prefer they disappeared sooner rather than later. Those thousands of poorly maintained, poorly moderated forums give millions of people a bad first impression of what forums are. By the time they eventually find a well-run community like yours or mine, they’ve already decided they “don’t like forums.”

If there’s real interest in a topic, new communities will spring up; run by enthusiasts who care, not by a corporation treating forums as an advertising billboard.

 

[Suzanne O]

Say what you will about VS but none of us should hope for the demise of over a thousand communities and millions of members currently under their ownership and care.

Nah mate, they're terrible and are a scam organisation.

 

[GCT2007]

I’d actually prefer they disappeared sooner rather than later. Those thousands of poorly maintained, poorly moderated forums give millions of people a bad first impression of what forums are. By the time they eventually find a well-run community like yours or mine, they’ve already decided they “don’t like forums.”

If there’s real interest in a topic, new communities will spring up; run by enthusiasts who care, not by a corporation treating forums as an advertising billboard.

Agree to disagree but the risk of seeing literally billions of threads and posts vanishing would be a terrible thing. It's bad enough when privately owned communities close up shop and you lose years of historical data.

 

[briansol]

Dear VS, i'm a buyer for pennies on the dollar when it's time.

 

[MySiteGuy]

They post fundraising drives to get money to keep the servers going, and their target numbers are way higher than for my modest setup, which runs a similarly busy forum with no issues. In other words, something I can run for ~$500 in hosting and domain fees, they are asking thousands for. And because we all know that they host all of these on the same server...WTF. And this is in addition to loading up the forums with intrusive ads.

Is their time worth something, or the time they might pay a tech?

 

[MySiteGuy]

The forum I own was a result of a VS takeover. A site with a strong community dating all the way back to the late 90s got sold by the original owner very suddenly. Basically, we all found out after the deal was done. Community was pretty shocked to say the least.

Literally that morning, three of us who had been very active forum members for many years took action and set up a new forum and started a PM chain that snowballed. We had essentially alerted nearly ALL the active members within a day and had a seamless transition to a new forum which is still going strong a few years later. If anything, we're doing better now than the years leading up to the VS sell out.

Maybe not the most ethical thing on our part, but neither is what happened to the original forum. It's very media and creative content-heavy, and all of that became property of VS with no heads up. People were extremely unhappy. Many of which went back and manually removed all the content they'd contributed over the years. Needless to say, the forum VS purchased is very, very dead now.

IMHO, someone selling their forum is not unethical, and often times VS will require an NDA during negotiations that prevents the person from sharing that a sale is possible. This is common practice with business sales of all types.

VS does not "own" the content and media. They are doing the same thing the original owner did, and that's exercising a license to display it.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Is their time worth something, or the time they might pay a tech?

It's possible...but as you know, once a forum is up and running (including any customizations), there really isn't much to do except routine maintenance. I have many tasks automated (like backups), and have a few things in place to alert me for problems.

I trust it more when the owner of an independent forum tries to fundraise, as they know the costs, and also know what their members might contribute. One of the smaller forums I visit does a "pass the hat" thing yearly and because many of us there are friends who have met in person, nobody minds sending a few bucks his way.

But for "holding companies," no, I don't trust them. They purchased forums to turn a profit, not to maintain a community (outside of making sure it remains busy...to make more profit). I actually know one of the former owners of one of the forums in that smaller holding company, and I know his setup was nearly the same as mine, and he probably spent an order of magnitude less for hosting and upkeep than what this company was trying to raise. In addition to all the ads they plastered all over the site. One day I may ask him how it went, and how he feels about the changes...

 

[Suzanne O]

If i wanted to have a forum that had the threaded views i'd go with vBulletin.
If i wanted to go with a forum that was heavily moderated by the forum software staff i'd go Proboards.com.
What i do is put up polls on my own forum and ask where to next...
Just as a discussion point.
If they love a particular forum software we discuss it.
If they hate a particular forum software we discuss it as well.

We love xenforo software because it's easy to use and simple to set up.

What's with those two forum software i've mentioned they're owned by Vertical Scope.

 

[Evan B PNW]

IMHO, someone selling their forum is not unethical, and often times VS will require an NDA during negotiations that prevents the person from sharing that a sale is possible. This is common practice with business sales of all types.

VS does not "own" the content and media. They are doing the same thing the original owner did, and that's exercising a license to display it.

When VerticalScope takes over a forum, their Terms of Service generally state that user-submitted content becomes licensed to VerticalScope (not personally owned by the poster anymore). That means they have the rights to host, display, and even republish the material across their network. Users technically retain copyright of their posts, but grant VerticalScope a perpetual license to use them.

 

[Mr Lucky]

user-submitted content becomes licensed to VerticalScope (not personally owned by the poster anymore).

I believe it is still “owned” by the poster. It is default for forum T&C to have a non exclusive licence to use the material and they can only use as defined in their T&C. XenForo use is defined as in connection with the service which I think means (as you might expect) on the forum. The non exclusive bit means you as copyright owner can do what you like, but the licensee is restricted to the use stated in the licence.

Users technically retain copyright of their posts, but grant VerticalScope a perpetual license to use them.

VS licence I believe is for any use including selling to third parties Including AI.

 

[Digital Doctor]

If i wanted to have a forum that had the threaded views i'd go with vBulletin.

That's ridiculous.

 

[ES Dev Team]

I’d actually prefer they disappeared sooner rather than later. Those thousands of poorly maintained, poorly moderated forums give millions of people a bad first impression of what forums are. By the time they eventually find a well-run community like yours or mine, they’ve already decided they “don’t like forums.”

If there’s real interest in a topic, new communities will spring up; run by enthusiasts who care, not by a corporation treating forums as an advertising billboard.

I so agree with this. I'm unfortunately in the forum hater category too - because most forums are crappy like this.
I run a non commercial forum and i'm generally turned off by other forums due to the extreme amount of ads, and usually lower discussion quality.
That ecosystem hurts sites like ours.

It would be great for information quality on the internet if communities were ran by people who were passionate about the topic instead of primarily money-motivated. The internet abhors an information vacuum.

 

[Evan B PNW]

I believe it is still “owned” by the poster. It is default for forum T&C to have a non exclusive licence to use the material and they can only use as defined in their T&C. XenForo use is defined as in connection with the service which I think means (as you might expect) on the forum. The non exclusive bit means you as copyright owner can do what you like, but the licensee is restricted to the use stated in the licence.


VS licence I believe is for any use including selling to third parties Including AI.

In any case, it was more the perception to the average user in this case. They saw it as having put their content onto a forum owned by one of their peers, only to have it sold to a large corporation who wanted to use their content and their data to generate ad revenue. This particular forum community noped out really quick.

 

[Wildcat Media]

It would be great for information quality on the internet if communities were ran by people who were passionate about the topic instead of primarily money-motivated. The internet abhors an information vacuum.

I think the problem is that a lot of these communities were run originally by owners who wanted a good place for discussion. But like many owners, they grew weary of dealing with problem members, paying for and maintaining hosting, or any number of other reasons just got tired of owning a forum. And the only way out for them, beside shutting it down, is to sell it. Most (or maybe even all) members wouldn't have the means to do so, either monetarily or technically. If the money is good, the owner is going to sell. And the new owners will buy it only to monetize it. That's happened with many forums I used to visit.

However, I have seen VS try to start up their own communities, and they are poorly attended. For instance, if an automotive manufacturer announces a new model, they will immediately register a domain name and create a new forum, even if it sits empty for a year or two. It gets some traffic, but it's not the same kind of atmosphere.

Some companies and corporations install forums for support. So having their brand on it doesn't make it ripe for selling off to a holding company--that puts a branded property of theirs out of their control. In that case, though, if a company finds it's too much work to maintain the forum, they simply shut it down.

In any case, it was more the perception to the average user in this case. They saw it as having put their content onto a forum owned by one of their peers, only to have it sold to a large corporation who wanted to use their content and their data to generate ad revenue. This particular forum community noped out really quick.

I hope that more communities do the same in the future--if their "home" gets sold, there's no reason not to build a new one, and quickly. They didn't sign on to join a corporate-owned forum and become a product. They just wanted a friendly place to discuss their niche interests among friends.

 

[frm]

For instance, if an automotive manufacturer announces a new model, they will immediately register a domain name and create a new forum

Some companies and corporations install forums for support.

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.

They chose to run their own forum for the brand and its models on XenForo. I would wager that this is the largest company on XF, by measuring it with the most means available to do what they want, just because they could tap into more resources if they needed.

Scout Motors Community Forums

The Official Scout Community discussion forums for the new Scout Traveler and Scout Terra. The factory source for the latest Scout updates, Scout truck updates, Scout vehicle development and Scout. Talk directly with Scout employees working on the next great American trucks.

community.scoutmotors.com

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.

I haven't scanned through VS to see if they have any Scout forums yet. But, could they even compete if they do?