I think they might be alluding to this thread? :
dprevived.com/t/wheres-my-blue-dof-indicator-gone/4116/post/47533/
Will you stay here if DPReview revives?
- 85 votes.
- Voting ends on May 10, 2023.
- Started by AlanSh on May 5, 2023.
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OK - thanks. I will reply to that one.
Alan
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I've always typed M43 because the symbol for micro is µ (Mu) and that's too hard to type.
Does anybody know the skinny on DPreview? Did Amazon management think better of it, did they get a buyout offer, or are they now profitable after staff departures? It really does seem like they'll never shut down.
Gotta say, content has actually improved since the threatened closure. I always liked their camera side-by-side and their sample galleries. Both have continued. I appreciate the recent DJI drone galleries.
Some DPreview forums are full of silly questions and many threads include pointless responses, but with volume sometimes comes useful answers.
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I don't think anyone knows apart from upper management.
Alan
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Hang out at both. DPReview seems to be more contentious with more threads degrading into "food fights." Watching food fights can be entertaining from time to time, but the number that break out on DPReview can be taxing to say the least. Even with the hiatus - the food fights didn't go away they came back with the uptick in the site. DPRevived seems more civil and mature for the lack of better words.
The UI on DPReview is a but more intuitive to me (but UI is pretty much personal) but DPRevived is new and will evolve. After all DPReview has had a quarter of a century to refine their S/W.
At the end of the day it depends what Amazon does with DPReview. If they sell it, what will the new owner do? If they (Amazon) keep it, how much budget will they be willing to allocate to it? It is getting more and more difficult for websites to make money off of advertising as people just don't like ads popping up in front of them and even today WiFi routers contain ad blockers. I put in a eero Pro6 mesh network last summer as lightening took out my router and ads are blocked by the router. Safari has ad blocking and there are plenty of third party ad blockers out. In a post on DPReview a couple years ago, Richard Butler complained about people using ad blockers because it cost them money. Throw in more people using a VPN and the paradigm is shifting on how websites can make money.
I have started using Peta Pixel for news. I don't have to get news and forum at the same place. With the uptick in DPReview I started to post some there and post some here after all I joined DPReview in 2001 so have been around for a long time. At the end of the day having options is a good thing and me personally I will continue to use both.
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I'm sure Amazon is saving money already, because based on performance, it's evident they are using lower tier AWS hosting. However I'd wager they still aren't breaking even.
One really nice thing about DpRevived is the threads view, which makes me interested in photography again, rather than just equipment.
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As an update to OP
DPRV will not close... It was sold !
www.dpreview.com/site-news/8298318614/dpreview-com-looks-forward-to-a-new-chapter-with-gear-patrol
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Yes, I just read that. I've never heard of Gear Patrol, so let's see what happens over there and here.
Alan
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Many people visor there for the articles and news, not only the forums. I hope this site keeps running, apparently the other forum (dprforum) is down. 🤔
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That limits the demographic a bit. -
I think it's still there. It says it has 14 people online.
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[deleted]
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Yes, it slimmed down. But that's still a salary bill of getting on for $1M per year. With running expenses, that's a lot of advertising revenue. I see that Gera Patrol doesn't have discussion forums. I would expect where it ends up is some of the DPReview staff getting integrated into GP and The DPReview site becoming the forums for GP, likely extending its coverage to the whole of what GP does. GP seems to have a staff of 32 people, so taking on 8 more will make quite a change to their bottom line, unless they can boost income by the takeover.
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Thanks for digging out some interesting data. I can see the forums getting the chop as they are probably cost a lot to maintain. Amateur Photography eliminated their forums recently. The numbers do not leave me with much optimism.
Looking at their site, I see fairly superficiel lifestyle type reviews. I took a look at the HiFi amp reviews, and I was not encouraged.
This has all the positivity of the Olympus/OM takeover.
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I think they are the cheapest part. After all, they don't bother to pay the moderators, and the paid staff don't bother much with them. They seem to think of them more as an annoyance. I know that the AP decision wasn't taken on the basis of cost - it was that the forums didn't fit with Kelsey's media strategy. It's quite possible that Gear Patrol will take the same attitude - that they are an annoyance.
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That's sad, quod he with tears running down his face ... not.
Anyone here who had dealings that site will be similarly saddened ...
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After checking out Gear Patrol, that I have never heard of before in a lifetime of loving gear, I'm struggling a little to believe dpreview will survive in a recognizable form for years to come, so I'm very thankful we have dprevived now as I think it will last longer. There is also much, much less bickering here.
That said, I will continue to visit both on an almost daily basis
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Being a bit blunt, this site has no content, at least in the Nikon forums. Zip. We had some early disasters, you know, the heated AF threads, but now it's crickets.
Truth be told, dpreview even in current (watered down) state has more discussion going on in Nikon land.Sadly, I think it was Thom Hogan who said the announcement of the closure of dpreview meant people would split off, and I think that's happened. There is no longer a singular gathering point/watering hole, even though what we had had it's warts (character limit on posts, strict censure in what language one could use, and a few true asshole mods). The days of sharing information via forum are likely done, as I see it. This forum has little, dprforum, ditto, and yet the minimalist dpreview still has the most, yet nowhere like it used to be. Not much to be excited about.
I'll hang out here because I like the private threads, but I can't remember the last time I participated in any worthwhile discussion. I think if I do so, it's likely going to go on dpreview since at least over there there is some activity on the Nikon side of things. Frankly, I don't think this site will be around in a year.
