Some thoughts on the new facilites.

I've got another question, if you don't mind @AlanSh:

Is the site going to be called 'The Photo' or is dprevived going to stay? In case of the former, I think it would be very appropriate to create a new logo for the site and (if possible) also move everything to that domain. If not, I think it's highly confusing and should rather be avoided.

Thanks for letting me know! I think it's important (in terms of easy recognition) to have one consistent name, look and message. I like the idea of 'The Photo' if it's used to emphasize the importance of the image and it would go well with Bobs motivation to build the best backend-system for sharing images.

I have a simple logo idea for that, which I can share:

I do not see a problem with DPRevived. It's not like you're saying Digital Photography Review Revived. That would have been DPRRevived. I think y'all spend too much time mired in the mud over trivial things and not concentrating on raising the participation up from 25-30 per day. Changing the name from DPRevived to The Photo or any other name is not going to change the participation level.

And on your comment "SJ, I don't know. I haven't talked to Bob (who owns DPRevived)..." that was my point in the very beginning. It's Bob's forum. Which kinda got refuted back then. Just sayin'

I doubt very much that anybody searching for a photography related website, either camera review or picture sharing, will use word "revived". Name has to be searchable. I tried to search for "digital photography" and "photograhy". DPRevived did not show up in either. Digital Photography Review showed up in both.

Has little to do with the name. Comes down to search engine optimization. DPReview over time got optimized organically, and there's a lot at play on a site with that much traffic and has been up so long.

I sold a business five years ago in Toronto. My original website had a short, kinda catchy name but didn't describe the business. But through both organic and focused search engine optimization, the site ranked #1 on just about any relevant search term you could come up with. I had also registered and parked website urls that was the company name in both .com and .ca Part of the name was what the business did. The new owner used the .com one and put up a new website. I had to talk them into leaving up the old one which has never been updated since. My old one is still number one. They're at best 7th

And about the last thing I'd search for a camera forum would be photo. The first thing I'd search would be "camera forum" It's all in the optimization.

Have you read the latest Bob's posts about direction he wants to take this website?

With all respect, content is still king. SEO may be essential when you have a low content site, typically selling something. A large forum has content and keywords aplenty in the forum posts. An if the site is any good it will also be linked to which is important. I'm not saying SEO is total crap, but for a site with lots of content, and hopefully good content, it's of minor importance.

It's not the 90s anymore when a good title and few meta tags got you indexed. SEs are smart today.

Totally agree. It is really incredible how long it takes to make some easy mods.
For instance, this landing page is OK, but this should have been the index page of this website(dprevived.com/), under while for months, not another URL (download.dprevived.com/home.html) where NOBODY will ever "land" when googling a photo discussion site.
To remake the index page like the landing page is a piece of cake for any normal forum software or any amateur software user...
The above criticism is meant to help, not to blame anyone, because I would be happy if this site continues...

Kindest regards,
Stany

And there are several of us who are both grateful and understanding 👍

Alan, I thank you and everyone else for their unpaid work on this project.
Maybe it's time to talk about funding dprevived. I propose paid subscription

Hi,

Well, often times the simplest things morph into a complicated mess. So, no worries here, either. :)

Stan

Yes, multiple times until about 5 months ago in multiple PM's about a "landing page" with screenshots and more to Bob, Arvo and you. Title was "About the importance of a (photography website-) homepage…"
Bob agreed on the idea for an index page (landing page) with (a) regularly changing picture(s) on top of it.
Do I have to post the content to refresh your memory? Here underneath a screenshot of a small part out of those PM's. (*)
I understand that you don't like criticism, even if it is meant to contribute to make succeed this project.
Kindest regards,
Stany

• ()Screenshots of my proposal about a "landing page with pictures" from 5 months ago removed after request from Arvo.*

It seems to me that the problem here is not one solved by technical changes alone but by understanding how to generate and maintain conversations. … The active threads like “C&C” and ”Canon“ are basically built around a core group that has been together and conversed about photography, among other things, for years. These sites need a core group and leader who can generate and keep the group together. “Weekly Image … ” was such a thread which tried to adjust to the flat view here and could not adjust as no leader was required and the periodic request for participation was missing,. They are now back at DPR. C&C has lived with the inconvenience of the flat view and maintained the conversations on this site with a leader and periodic requests for participation. This to me is bit tribal and somewhat social networking. IMHO what kept many of the other forums on DPR active and grew the conversations were the manufacturers who continued to refresh the conversations by turning out new products every year.. As the manufacturers have slowed their production of new products I think the conversations over on DPR have also slowed …

For me, this site is a moderately active DPR forum. … with a couple active threads as was the “Olympus SLR Forum' back on DPR. To maintain what we have we need to keep those threads that already have a conversation going and to grow to find a way to generate new core groups that attract people to them .. I can observe and kibitz but cannot help here as I have tried several times to start such threads back at DPR and one went for years but never generated that core group … all died. …. Perhaps there is Sociologist among us that can help here ….

All of this may have been said and discussed before but this conversation has become so long that I lost it after the first three or four pages and have only read a few of the more recent thoughts ….

WhyNot