Forum ownership

[JohnR]

So...

Has Kahr Talk been purchased by VerticalScope yet?

[Kristo]

Good question... seems like everyone else has.

[CJB]

VerticalScope is commercial. And its fully owned by Torstar which is the most liberal Corporation in Canada and also owns the Toronto Star.

On another forum there were questions regarding why Torstar would want to own a firearms-related website. The response was a fluff canned one.

VerticalScope will change a site into an ad spewing, datametric gathering machine quicker than you can imagine. Beware the billion-dollar company that wants to buy some small website. Torstar uses Verticalscope as its data metric spy organization.

[SlowBurn]

They bought several gun forums all at once from a single prior owner. I assume they did so because they expect profit. They have an anti-popup ad policy and generally seem interested in keeping the forum members they have happy and attracting new ones. I doubt they want to drive people away. I'm sure they're numbers driven, want to maximize views and participation to maximize ad revenue (see the banners on top? companies pay for those.) Data collection is part of the game, but really they already know everything they need to know about us as consumers and what types of interests we have. Don't need to do much guessing, data mining or analysis. My guess is that's what they like about special interest forums.

The forum I visit, they announced up front, asked for suggestions to improve the forum, and responded to replies, even the rude and paranoid ones. I think they would have done that here too if they had acquired it. Probably make few changes except some slight improvements (like button?)

[JohnR]

"We're bean counters, and we're here to help."

For us Floridians (and anyone else) who don't want to be part of that, there's www.FloridaSheepdogs.com

[SlowBurn]

"We're bean counters, and we're here to help."

For us Floridians (and anyone else) who don't want to be part of that, there's www.FloridaSheepdogs.com

Thanks. I'm not concerned about ownership, but frankly don't find the FCC forum that useful so be nice to try something else. BTW any plans to add Tapatalk capability?

[SlowBurn]

They also bought Ruger Pistol Forum aka Elsie P. Don't know enough to guess the whys of it all.

My HOPE is these boards are worth running for the owners by some measure. I don't really know who owns this forum, but I always assumed Kahr Arms was involved and supported it in some way while keep pretty hands off, and that the exposure to their products made it worthwhile. I could be wrong.

[WMD]

Not that I am nescessarily "in the know" but pretty sure Kahrtalk is not owned by VerticalScope. I think it is an independant forum. I have been lurking on this forum since it started although, I do not really post too much.

[SlowBurn]

According to their websites both the Elsie Pea forum and the Kahr Forum (the other one) belong to Forum Foundry, Inc. Vertical Scope probably acquired all Forum Foundry gun forums in one transaction, and didn't update those pages yet. So that would explain why they acquired the other Kahr forum and not this one.

[JohnR]

Personally I despise Tapatalk so no. But when you go on your iPhone it has a very good mobile interface, much better than Tapatalk.

On a non-gun forum, someone wrote this:

I've been a member of a farming board, owned by VerticalScope, for 5 or 6 years. The board has a great membership, folks from all over the world, but the nonstop, and increasing, advertising is just too annoying. I don't visit there much any more.

The board also has a weird nanny filter. It blocks "hell" and "damn" but none of George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words. Shrug.