VerticalScope reported revenue decrease and search traffic decrease in Q1 2025

[HotRodCarts]

They just bought several big musical instrument forums a couple months ago.

 

[Chris2]

No, they lost a million or 2, again.

q on q loss along with y on y declines is not a successful business. If i was on the board, heads would be rolling. I guess they already did that though, ditching unprofitable channels like threadloom and who knows what else.

With 13 mil in rev, they don't have a rev problem - they have a spending problem.
2-4 mil can probably host/serve/support/moderate the sites they have. Where's the rest of the burndown?

Shows they have 245 employees. That seems like an awful lot based on that revenue. Also looks like their stock is back at a 52-week low.

 

[TCG2007]

Shows they have 245 employees. That seems like an awful lot based on that revenue. Also looks like their stock is back at a 52-week low.

All the innovations.

 

[zappaDPJ]

They just bought several big musical instrument forums a couple months ago.

They have been buying up destroying guitar related forums for the last eight years. I've lost count of the number of such forums I no longer visit.

 

[TCG2007]

Introducing an AI assistant. Curious how this goes, tbh.

ForaFrank - New Community Assistant - Coming Soon

We understand that some of you may have concerns about the use of AI-generated responses in our forums. We’re approaching this as an experimental feature. We've noticed some threads, especially ones by newer users or involving niche topics, sometimes go unanswered under “What's New” > “Looking...

www.lawnsite.com

 

[Max Fridman]

AI Mode is obviously the future of Google Search

The internet’s biggest search engine is going to be unrecognizable in just a few years.

www.theverge.com

Google announced "AI Mode" yesterday coming to US users.

Basically you get AI responses for every query (even longer ones) like ChatGPT or Gemini does already. Like AI Overviews but personalized.

When I ask Fox and Reid what this might mean for the web, and for the millions of website owners and publishers that have long depended on Google to send them traffic, Fox says he’s convinced the rise of AI is not the end of the open web. “I deeply believe this is an expansionary moment,” he says. “The death of the web has been 25 years coming, and it’s not happening. The web is growing.” He says Google’s data shows that people do click the links in the AI Overviews, and can actually be more engaged in the sites they go to because they’re deliberately looking to go deeper on something. But he allows that he’s an optimist on this stuff.

I feel like question and answer forums are basically doomed long term, you need to provide different value to your users, the death of StackOverflow is another signal of this change.

What value forums could provide long term?

 

[Chris2]

They have been buying up destroying guitar related forums for the last eight years. I've lost count of the number of such forums I no longer visit.

They bought Marshallforum.com recently. From briefly visiting, I could immediately tell members weren’t very happy about it.

 

[Chris2]

AI Mode is obviously the future of Google Search

The internet’s biggest search engine is going to be unrecognizable in just a few years.

www.theverge.com

Google announced "AI Mode" yesterday coming to US users.

Basically you get AI responses for every query (even longer ones) like ChatGPT or Gemini does already. Like AI Overviews but personalized.



I feel like question and answer forums are basically doomed long term, you need to provide different value to your users, the death of StackOverflow is another signal of this change.

What value forums could provide long term?

I’m guessing human confirmation of the AI answers they received lol. And from the looks of it with VS, hope that even that is actually a human response.

 

[zappaDPJ]

They bought Marshallforum.com recently. From briefly visiting, I could immediately tell members weren’t very happy about it.

I believe it was one of many music/gear related forums owned by Enthused Digital. My understanding is VerticalScope are in the process of buying that company. In fact it's probably a done deal because Enthused Digital's main site is currently off-line.

 

[Max Fridman]

I’m guessing human confirmation of the AI answers they received lol. And from the looks of it with VS, hope that even that is actually a human response.

Forums will surely become something other than simply answering questions, trivially looking for topics that an artificial intelligence cannot cover or viewpoints that need human opinion.

For example in the fashion world, judging what looks good together or whether an outfit is made well on a quality level.

Even more specific answers will also be sought in the evaluation of a job, artificial intelligence does not currently have great critique capabilities.

Paradoxically, the death of StackOverflow is indicative of this. But forums still have room to exist, as we see from reddit.

Although manipulations are beginning to be evident (especially on Reddit) and Google is trying to emancipate itself. In fact they are testing a “forum” feature for AI Mode.

 

[ArtG]

I don't know about you all but in my niche, forums have never been only about answering questions. The most valuable thing a forum does is facilitate the creation of a community where people feel they belong and where human interaction happens, in spite of great distances in between. AI will never match this personal connection.

Also, my niche has very nuanced answers that require as much "art" and "hands-on experience" as it does just general knowledge. You know, many ways to skin a cat thing. It is unlikely that AI will provide that any time soon.

Based on the above, I am thinking about AI as a big positive for me and my forum.

That said, if I had a Facebook Group that was mostly just superficial question/answer based, I would definitely be worried with AI and Google changes.

The issue, IMHO, with companies like the one we are discussing, is that they remove the personal touch/community from the forum. This will expose them to AI challenges. Again, IMO.

 

[ProxyZiny]

Google's March Core Update was detrimental for us, too.

It was even worse than we thought! Some of our sites still haven't fully recovered.

 

[Max Fridman]

I don't know about you all but in my niche, forums have never been only about answering questions. The most valuable thing a forum does is facilitate the creation of a community where people feel they belong and where human interaction happens, in spite of great distances in between. AI will never match this personal connection.

Also, my niche has very nuanced answers that require as much "art" and "hands-on experience" as it does just general knowledge. You know, many ways to skin a cat thing. It is unlikely that AI will provide that any time soon.

Based on the above, I am thinking about AI as a big positive for me and my forum.

That said, if I had a Facebook Group that was mostly just superficial question/answer based, I would definitely be worried with AI and Google changes.

The issue, IMHO, with companies like the one we are discussing, is that they remove the personal touch/community from the forum. This will expose them to AI challenges. Again, IMO.

The only thing that could change and lead to zero click results is AI swallowing and processing informations from forums en-masse, more than what they do today. But is true only for some type of searches I guess.

Humans on the internet still search other humans not bots.