@thetick wrote:
Your standards are a bit high for a tiny company like Roku surviving among the three largest and most ruthless competitors in the world ( Google, Amazon, Apple).
What do you mean, exactly? I'm not comparing this forum software to what those entities use. Mostly because I have no idea what they use, and partly because it's probably about on par with this one for all I know. And I'm not suggesting that Roku hire a team of specialists to develop their own custom forum software (that would be silly - and they're probably end up with something like this one, anyway).
And I wasn't actually suggesting that Roku dump this piece of swill and get something better. Companies of a substantial size mostly seem to be run (in practice) by their marketing/advertising departments. That's why I asked if there was an alternative to it. But, yes, if Roku released Common Sense from the dungeon they've got it languishing in, it would be a great help - to both Roku, its current customers, and those potential future customers.
By the way... You agreed that this forum software sucks. Now spend some time searching for and reading about the pricing, and the pricing structure for this... thing. It'll make you laugh out loud! Apparently, it's the most expensive in the industry. $35,000 minimum. I don't even know what that covers (gets them to talk to you, maybe?), because then you've got the fee based on how many people use your forum... 0 to 500,000 members = $90,000, and it goes up from there. And then there are the modules. Tribal Knowledge Base, $15,000+/year. Premium Gamification and Badging (bading, LMAO), $50,000+/year. Ideation, $175,000+/year. Q&A Base, $175,000+/year. Want someone to set the thing up for you, migrate your data from a prior forum platform, and run it so that you don't have to pay someone in your own organization $24K to $32K/year? No problem, Khoros has you covered - for up to (and over) $150,000/year, lol.
Now go take a look at vBulletin's pricing. Or, if you're feeling froggy, I suppose you could contact them and ask if a relatively large business entity could migrate to and use its software, but keep the bill under... IDK... $250,000/year. Wouldn't really surprise me if the reply was something like "We'll have to verify your bonafides, of course - but then we could have someone, in person, in your office, anywhere in the world, tomorrow, to meet with you." Because the cost difference between the steak in the plain wrapper and the potted meat "food product" in the big, in-your-face shiny packaging with the flashing lights and perky audio soundtrack that proudly proclaims the 101 reasons why you really, really DO prefer eating something that was scraped up off of the slaughterhouse floor over a choioce cut of the finest beef imaginable... actually is.
More people were stuck at home this year twiddling their thumbs and wanting a distraction than any year in recent history. Yet, according to an article published six days ago on The Motley Fool's website:
"Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) has become an enigma. Logically, it seems like COVID-19 would have boosted Roku stock as millions of newly unemployed workers turned to low-cost streaming services to pass the time.
However, Roku stock moved lower at the height of the pandemic, and it has not returned to levels it saw in February. Nor has it broken the downtrend that began in September 2019. At that point, this consumer discretionary stock began a volatile downward trend that remains today.
Given Roku's behavior, investors may want to evaluate the stock's weaknesses and strengths before deciding whether to buy."
Furthermore, the same article also states "Consensus forecasts place losses at $1.70 per share for the current fiscal year, and no analyst predicts a profit through 2022."
And they're using the most expensive forum packaging in existence, lol. One that is considered sub-par by many (all?) of its users. But the marketing department loves it. . . .
