Cigar News
Massive cigar forums buy-out
If you have been following the news, you probably heard that a few very popular cigar sites were recently bought by a certain Jon Caputo. The sites that were sold are:
clubstogie.com
top25cigar.com
cigarlive.com
cigar-review.com
Corresponding announcements are available on the sites, feel free to check them out. Although I’m not against buying and selling websites, there is one thing that bothers me here – the fact that all the content/databases will be moved to another domain (puff.com) which is supposed to become THE cigar resource on the web. Will it mean that the old sites will be left unused or redirected to puff.com? We shall see. So far I like the fact that Jon is really involved in this and answers all the questions that forum members ask.
I sincerely wish the best of luck to Jon and his new network and congratulate owners of websites who probably made a sweet deal 🙂
What do you think about the recent happenings?
13 thoughts on “Massive cigar forums buy-out”
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Conceptually, it was an interesting idea that Mr. Caputo had, I just wonder if anyone could have anticipated the very vocal pushback. Still, Puff.com looks good, and I see lots of good ideas in motion, so I’m of a mind to be patient with the process. It’s only the Internet, after all.
No – as far as I know, Jon was only interested in purchasing cigar forums.
did they make you an offer?
It is interesting to see what will come of this consolidation.
What I tend to see from the forums are members becoming heated and angry and becoming rude to other people not involved in this merger.
While it’s never fun to have a house mixed up – let’s remember that we are all here because of our passion for cigars.
If anyone needs a new home, go to http://www.cigarasylum.com/
I understand everyone being fearful of what they think it may become, but until it becomes that I plan to give it a shot.
I can’t see a forum with a really large membership providing the same atmosphere (style)and attention to each other as the previous smaller individual forums. Any larger forum I have been to has most posts buried and falling off the board with only two or three quick responses to your question or statement, simply due to the high volume of entries. I will be looking for a forum where I feel I know most of the members and it is not all about the advertising, as I am afraid Puff.comm will become.
It’s unfortunate. This feels like it’s more than the sale of a website — it’s the sale of a community, which to my mind is not a marketplace commodity. To make matters worse, it’s the forced merger of communities with different styles — I know that Jon plans to build separate “clubhouses” for Cigarlive and Club Stogie, but you can bet your bottom dollar that this is just a temporary appeasement for current members. Soon we’ll all be pufferized. Or just leave, which seems more likely, and maybe come back later. Maybe.
I don’t know… this just doesn’t seem like a good thing. It seems that his sole purpose is to develop a large marketing machine? You would have to have an awful lot of disposable income to buy up these forums without some kind of plan…
If people are banned or driven off of the forums due to their deterioration, they will just find another place. He should really be careful in what he does as forums can be a finicky bunch…
I’m not ready to slam the door on the merger not working, Jon Caputo has to know what he is doing. The success of developer shed is proof of that…
My ban is for 14 days. I’m curious to see what is going on.. I’ve heard there have been death threats made to Jon over this…
Cigar smokers are passionate…death threats are insane… A lot of people are not happy. Right now I am neither unhappy or happy. Curious somes it up in a word.
I know the industry people are not happy though.
“So far I like the fact that Jon is really involved in this and answers all the questions that forum members ask.”
Unless of course your questions is expressing concern or making any statement that can be remotely regarded as negative. Then your question/comment gets deleted and you get banned from the site.
I can’t wait to see where this train finally wrecks.
Reading other people’s private messages is unacceptable.
Doesn’t sound very good 🙁
I got banned from one of those sites for voicing a concern. A person who I met in real life and I were exchanging PRIVATE messages where I said if the site goes to hell, I would start my own forum… Well that private message was read and I am now banned from the site…
Time will tell if the merger is good or bad…