Heads-Up / Anti-Gun Newspaper Buying Gun Forums

[Pizza Bob 1,488]

The Toronto Star (also known as the Toronto Red Star) under the corporate banner of Vertical Scope is buy a large number of gun forums. Not putting this forth as a conspiracy theory, at this point it looks like they are only in it for the money. Buy a forum, upgrade it and monetize the heck out of it.

 

Of interest to us specifically, is the forum at New Jersey Hunter. Just thought I'd let you know in case we have any members here who also belong to that forum. The known list consists of:

 

ACR Forum 
Defensive Carry 
National Gun Forum 
The AK Forum 
Sniper Forums 
Marlin Owners Forum
Handguns and Ammunition Forums
6.8 Forums 
XD Talk 
Walther Forums 
Prepper Forums 
New Jersey Hunter 
Trap Shooters
Taurus Armed 
Colt Forum 
FN Forum 
Florida Concealed Carry Forum 
M&P Forum 
M-14 Forum
H&K Pro 

 

Be careful out there.

 

Adios,

 

Pizza Bob

 

 

[Krdshrk 3,878]

I knew NJH was being sold... again... meh.

[checko 180]

Interesting

 

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[Purple Patrick 638]

Maybe they will buy us and put out some swag

 

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[Bighungry618 450]

Maybe they will buy us and put out some swag

 

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Lol...Chuckled for real...so yeah congrats on your warning point! 

[Smokin .50 1,907]

^^^Yet another reason why CNJFO steadfastly supports and volunteers for kids shooting events all over the state!

 

TAKE A KID SHOOTING!  The future of shooting (especially in NJ) depends upon it!

 

http://www.cnjfo.com/news  for our latest newsletter!

[T Bill 649]

Up to now, all corporate responses to anti 2A has been to shut us out of the equation, not buying us out of the equation.  Conspiracy abound, Backdoor Bloomturd? Or perhaps something else? Time will tell.

[Newtonian 453]

If there's one thing that big corporations like more than hating guns, it's money. They don't give a crap about morals real or imagined. They would sell their mothers for a favorable 3rd-quarter earnings estimate.

 

They plan to make $$$ from this, and hypocritically laugh all the way to the bank. 

[bhunted 887]

Verticalscope.com is doing the same thing. They just bought/took over KimberTalk. They said they have no intentions of tyrannical control.

 

 

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[robot_hell 72]

I am not worried by the new owners pulling the plug on one, or even several gun forums. If that happens, there are plenty of enterprising souls that will move in and create replacement. It doesn't affect the communities much, comparatively-- they will re-organize under new names. Media businesses looking to monetize know this, and would not willingly cut out that revenue potential. I think that particular concern is a non-issue.

 

I am much more concerned about the implications of subtle censorship. This is much harder to detect unless the members of the community are close enough to have backchannel communication, and since it doesn't overtly push people away, it  still preserves revenue.

[mipafox 438]

They probably intend to shut them all down during the next legislative gun ban push in order to prevent organization of push back.

[Schrödinger's cat 87]

I'm a member on NJH, I don't really go on there much because there are a few trolls that ruin every thread but I'm not worried about it being shut down. If it will be I'm sure everyone will just move over to a new forum. The real loss would be the loss of archives, they own the servers.

[BlueLineFish 615]

I'm sure if the offer is right this place would get sold in a heartbeat.

[robot_hell 72]

I'm sure if the offer is right this place would get sold in a heartbeat.

 

Everyone's got a price.

[diamondd817 828]

They probably intend to shut them all down during the next legislative gun ban push in order to prevent organization of push back.

Bloomberg funded?

[capt14k 2,052]

Gunboards sold to them.

 

Can anyone confirm if the premium charge of $1 a month combined with sponsors pays the bills for this site? Vic said there was no choice but to sell gunboards, but they never had any type of premium payment system and relied on mailed in donations and sponsors.

 

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[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot 358]

Newspapers are dying so they are making these digital media investments. Not a bad strategy. Roll up all these forums, aggregate your information and posts, mine it to build a consumer marketing profile for you. Or, worst, sell that information to a background screening firm so they can mine that and your other social media footprint for negative information. Big brother indeed. I work with a lot of these firms. It's crazy the amount of information they have on you

[DaveR 42]

They will probably just redirect you to http://www.bradycampaign.org like http://www.njgunforum.com/ used to.  ( Yes, I have made that type before )

 

It no longer redirects because they never validated their email address on registration.

 

You can use the Wayback Machine to see an example of it.  http://web.archive.org/

[kirk2022 43]

Trap shooters confirmed not selling, to debunk this.

[JackDaWack 2,895]

So you telling me someone needs to start a new NJ hunter forum?

[Krdshrk 3,878]

I'm sure if the offer is right this place would get sold in a heartbeat.

If it was a crazy offer, maybe...  Maks does this mostly for the love of the sport.

 

 

Gunboards sold to them.

 

Can anyone confirm if the premium charge of $1 a month combined with sponsors pays the bills for this site? Vic said there was no choice but to sell gunboards, but they never had any type of premium payment system and relied on mailed in donations and sponsors.

 

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Premium memberships + the vendor sponsors don't come close to paying for it, but Maks takes care of it.

[NJGF 375]

I doubt any conspiracy as they own many hundreds of boards. This is this what they do. But in any event you never know what the future holds. You can see their portfolio at: http://www.verticalscope.com/ They have been making major acquisitions over the past few years.

[Schrödinger's cat 87]

So you telling me someone needs to start a new NJ hunter forum?

There already is njwoodsandwater.com

[capt14k 2,052]

If it was a crazy offer, maybe... Maks does this mostly for the love of the sport.

 

 

 

Premium memberships + the vendor sponsors don't come close to paying for it, but Maks takes care of it.

I assume that is not a serious answer. If so do you know a dollar figure for how short membership fees and sponsors is from operating cost?

 

Also is there on percentage figure on paid members?

 

Reason I ask is I would rather pay a couple dollars a month to RMNF and Surplus Rifle Forum than lose them too.

 

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[Krdshrk 3,878]

I assume that is not a serious answer. If so do you know a dollar figure for how short membership fees and sponsors is from operating cost?

 

Also is there on percentage figure on paid members?

 

Reason I ask is I would rather pay a couple dollars a month to RMNF and Surplus Rifle Forum than lose them too.

 

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I don't know the exact numbers, but I do recall Maks saying before that we have a lot of traffic on this site and that the premier memberships and vendors do not cover it.

[JackDaWack 2,895]

How much does it cost to run this forum for a month?

[Purple Patrick 638]

You know what would generate a decent amount of money? T shirts

 

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[Schrödinger's cat 87]

Lol

[Kevin125 4,772]

I am not worried by the new owners pulling the plug on one, or even several gun forums. If that happens, there are plenty of enterprising souls that will move in and create replacement. It doesn't affect the communities much, comparatively-- they will re-organize under new names. Media businesses looking to monetize know this, and would not willingly cut out that revenue potential. I think that particular concern is a non-issue.

 

I am much more concerned about the implications of subtle censorship. This is much harder to detect unless the members of the community are close enough to have backchannel communication, and since it doesn't overtly push people away, it  still preserves revenue.

 

Mostly about money.  Partly about the mindset behind the shuttered "Fairness Doctrine"... where speech of the right is targeted for regulation.  Clinton and Pelosi were caught on a hot mic talking about getting the Fairness Doctrine going in order to take control of conservative talk radio and Fox News.

 

Though.. looking at Fox News these days.... it appears they got in there somehow.

[capt14k 2,052]

How much does it cost to run this forum for a month?

I don't know about this forum or GB, but another popular forum I am a member of the owner confirmed costs less than $600/yr to operate and of course many man hours.

 

According to a Linked Sponsor's post on GB they are charged $200/yr. There are 22 linked Sponsors and there are other lower level Sponsors without links as well. Linked Sponsors alone = $4,400/yr in revenue. 3 Sponsors posted VS sent them invoices for $1,200/yr, but then after protesting lowered the price to the current $200/yr. However takeover isn't official yet.

 

The most expensive private server hosting package for V-Bullentin Forums I found was $2,040/yr the most expensive shared hosting package for V-Bullentin Forums I found was $600/yr.

 

I am sure there are other costs, but there is also other ad revenue for large indexed sites, such as click through revenue. I remember reading about a guy who makes millions from click through revenue alone by creating landing pages of common mispellings of popular websites.

 

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