Another BBS Acquired by Internet Brands

[legion]

http://www.huntingnet.com/fieldjournal/fieldjournal_detail.aspx?nID=861

I'm truly excited to announce that HuntingNet.Com, DeerHunting.Com, WhitetailDeer.Com & HuntingOutiftters.Com have been acquired by Internet Brands, Inc. This is a company that operates many useful and well-known automotive web sites such as CarsDirect.com, F150online.com, and Wikicars.com and more. You may or may not have seen the news, but they also recently acquired vBulletin, a powerful community forum software company. Quite frankly, I could not be more pleased to have a company like this take over the site as they are the most technologically advanced thinkers that I have met in a long time.

This is a BIG FREAKIN' Deal. I wonder what this means for Pelican long-term?

[VaSteve]

um, pelican BBS is tied to the company because wayne hopes it might just sell a couple of bucks worth of stuff from the company.

i do wish it was standardized on Vbulletin. The new format is nice, but I like all my smiles...see this one doesn't work: :lol: or this :banghead:

[kstar]

I wonder if Wayne has a "price"?

He could sell the board and have it still be a conduit for business, depending on the terms of the transaction.

FWIW.

Best,

Kurt

[cab83_750]

I have been wondering about Pelican. Wayne recently posted a thread about limited parts for our early cars due to Porsche recalling all supplies back to Germany.

Limited supplies could have a direct effect on Wayne's bottom-line. Now being a smart businessman, it might be the best time for him to _______ (fill in the blanks).

[Scott R]

They met my price for a site that review laptop computers. It was also a VBB with about 125K registered and 12k daily on-line. I've no regrets other thank the fact that I had to give up a few screen names forever.

[Scooter]

The buyout seems to be working for Rennlist.

[Sapporo Guy]

People looking for a new form of investment vehicle for their fund.

hmmm, buy vB and you have to loads and loads for sites and commercial sites.
Maybe, they're looking at advertising revenue ??? Selling off to M$ ???

Just for kicks, I wonder what some of those sites sold for?
OR better yet, what Wayne was offered

[kstar]

I don't think Wayne would kiss and tell . . . because he wouldn't and that would be weird . . . for him to kiss one of us.

Best,

Kurt

[BRPORSCHE]

Originally Posted by procon

They also recently acquired six speed dot com.

The six is going down the drain. I enjoy reading the 996tt forums, but the OT forum over there, though extremely active is like a bunch of seniors in High School. No disrespect to all the posters though. Hope Internet Brands cleans it up, or MTK will PIITB!

[Sapporo Guy]

Go down the drain... interesting point. Some sites do that after changing owners.

Could be that the following are attached to their leader and when another steps in with a more hands-off approach people start to loose interest and the moderators disappear since their loyalties were with the original owner or now feel they want $$$ for their time.

This happened to me before. I jumped ship when my buddy sold out. The new person didn't turn me on and why should I invest time in something just so that a person I don't know can profit from my work.

[kstar]

The next question is, at what point does your web empire become more valuable than your parts business?

The registered user base and number of page views has considerable value, as you certainly know.

Best,

Kurt

[techweenie]

There is a total of over 100 automotive forums now in Internet Brands' portfolio.

The M.O. to date has been that IB likes the forums and buying them includes keeping what's good about them (same leadership). Doesn't do you much good to buy something and immediately break it.

[Sapporo Guy]

You build up a large portfolio, combine some redudant sites, convert to some kind of combined hosting, spam/profile the user base, offer advertising, generate enough income to pay salaries to the original owners and stock dividends. Then what?

Hmmmm, back to my idea of selling off to the likes of M$. ( M$ has carpoint in Japan. )
Or some other company.

You have to have profit from this down the road ... I'm thinking the user base is the key here.

Currently, in my line of work, buying a customer base makes more sense than trying to open a new region/area. Now, what does this have to do with anything ???

[stomachmonkey]

Proven demographically identifiable user base = Gold.

[cl8ton]

With those other forums…Sometimes “Acquired” means, “Hired”

I believe PP’s forums are only secondary to the parts business, which is doing well I bet!
Best place to buy Porsche parts on the Internet! IMO

[Sapporo Guy]

I thought about this some more.

vB was an interesting buy. Nobody mentioned this so far.
vB gets update every so often, sales are made. You now have a shoe-in to what sites to pick up next. Much easier to sell to a company that you know than to some other outfit out of the blue

[notfarnow]

Originally Posted by cl8ton

With those other forums…Sometimes “Acquired” means, “Hired”

I believe PP’s forums are only secondary to the parts business, which is doing well I bet!
Best place to buy Porsche parts on the Internet! IMO

Best place online? For many of us, it's the best place to buy Porsche parts... period.

I bet that in Fresno you have a choice of several Porsche shops where you could go to get expert advice, second opinions etc... For many of us in places like, oh, say Saint John, NB, there isn't a SINGLE shop that specializes in Porsches. Want to order a part at the local foreign car specialist? Sure, but you better know what you want, and you better be sure it's going to fix the problem.

Being able to search for information, or ask questions here is invaluable. It's amazing, really.

There is NO WAY my father would have his 86 Carrera without this board. For one thing, it was advertised in the PP classifieds. For another, he only bought it because I said I'd maintain it for him. And there is NO WAY I'd be able to maintain it without this BBS. It would just be impossible.

A guy who'd never driven a 911 before gets PPI advice online from John Walker and Wayne Dempsey, and gets complete strangers to check out a car. A guy who'd never so much as checked a fuse on a 911 gets help doing maintenace, suspension work, etc? Amazing, really

It's hard to say where the forum stops and the parts sales start, they are so intertwined. Unless I buy used, I won't buy from anyone other than Pelican.

[cl8ton]

Here is a traffic count for some of the acquired forums by IB.
Cross-reference the spikes with turnover dates and it gets interesting!

Seems PP has can hold its own with a long term upwards trend to boot!