How come sold forums seem to die out soon after?

I never quite understood this, but half the time when I see a forum sold to a big company (or just to a new owner), it seems to just die out completely. Especially when a big corporation like Internet Brands buys such a site.

Is it due to many people who buy forums not having much interest in actually managing them to any degree? Some kind of loyalty to the former owners? General change in atmosphere?

 

I think it's a combination of the things you have mentioned.

When somebody new takes over, things are different. The members don't really know the person, so aren't sure what is acceptable, what isn't, and how they run things. They are probably more likely to retreat into a shell of silence for a while as they try to get a feel for things. If things change, they probably won't ever revert back to being active.
In a good strong community, members often establish relationships with the administrator or owner, and they can even be considered friendships. When the owner leaves, all of those connections are lost and the users are left helpless. Some may be outgoing enough to try to bond with the new owner, but others will just take it as a sign to move on.

Very rarely do things go smoothly within the community after the sale of a forum. At least that's my observation.
My philosophy is, don't sell the forum unless you don't care what happens to it.

 

i agree, cause if an admin sells their forum to someone they dont know, members might not like the new person, or feel like the old admin doesnt care about the forum anymore. or they might not agree with changes.

or the new admin doesnt care about the forum, rarely comes on and leaves the forum with nobody who has enough admin powers to look after it

 

Most of the time, people buy forums with $$$ in their mind.

You don't make a lot with forums, compared to other sites.

Once the owner realises it, they lose interest and disappear..

 

This is my take.

Someone with the passion for the subject matter starts a forum, over time it becomes successful from both an income and activity level. Corp. forum owners make an offer to purchase the site making promises that it will not change. The owner may be burned out or see's a big payday so jumps.

The new owner relies on the existing volunteer staff to keep things running yet this is now clearly a for profit venture. New advertising locations are added to the site, new ads for unrelated items appear. Advertising rates go up as well. Staff wants a piece of the pie but get a cold shoulder from the owners so they bail. Members now see all this new advertising and see the staff is turning over, they start looking for a new home.

The previous owner is bummed that the site went to seed and creates a new one. Or some of the old staff goes and creates a new site. The old site by virtue of it's size still attracts new members but the old ones are bailing to new sites. Over time the old site dies by 100 cuts.

 

Most of the time, it has to do with the new staff changing things. The only time I see a forum stay alive is when:
1) The new staff is extremely outgoing and establishes connections with the members - mostly on a personal level. They must listen to everything and show they care.
2) The old staff stays on to keep the peace and order.

The reason is people don't like change. And when things change, so do the people.

 

Out of curiosity, are there are any sites you'd say have been bought and were improved massively by the new owners? I'm sure that must be some, so I want to see some good examples to offset the bad.

 

I remember seeing GlobeSound.net - The Music Enthusiastic Community and it being a decent forum. But, garala came in and just pumped it up with a nice skin and tight integration of mods and it was improved. Not sure how well the "community" is going right now (haven't checked it for awhile), but I know that the outward appearance improved a lot.

 

How about some examples?

 

Everything Internet Brands buys for one. I'll leave vBulletin out of this itself, because that's doing pretty well but is a software product and not just a forum.

Audiworld is dead. Long Live Quattroworld! IEDEI

^Went from about a few thousand posts a day to less than ten a day.

Their other sites are looking a bit ominous here as well, with a couple seemingly hitting an activity brick wall.

The other one was a rival admin site to Admin Addict, which won't be mentioned because I can't link to those sites here.

 

The owner of our local board sold it to a company out of Florida. He figured they would pay the bills and it would run as usual. Well about a month later the board was closed and the site was turned into some misc for sale/ advertising board.


http://www.anythingcars.com/

 

They probably lack the real authentic motivation needed to keep the forum alive and kicking. They just throw money at an adwords campaign and then they don't oversee the forum so it gets trampled full of spam and loses value to its real users.

 

That looks like one of those default "domain reserved" type pages. I think it's just been shut and abandoned.

 

Ya I just looked at it too. Its alexa is in the 11 mill so it couldn't have ever been too popular. Just my opinion..

 

I've personally seen this happen to a site that was a member of for years and even was made an admin on (you can read the story about that here).

What happens is most of the time (but not always) a site started by someone who has a lot of dedication to it. When someone buys a site and it's more of an investment not a hobby and this shows. Members can tell when you are dedicated to their community and when you only in it for the money. Also if they are use to one type of management and then someone new comes in and does a 180 on them it's not going to go over very good and the end result is the forums end up dieing off.

 

The personality is the key to success.
This is what attracts people.
It defines the kind of community you get.

When such a leader goes away, people go away too.