DPReview is shutting down

[Manfred M]

One of the better equipment review sites is being shut down by its owner, Amazon.

https://www.dpreview.com/

[LenR]

Too bad...... perhaps something to do with all the Amazon staff lay offs (27,000 I believe)

[DanK]

A shame. I had no idea Amazon owned the site.

[pschlute]

A real shame. They were the first forum I ever became a member of.

[billtils]

I'm not a great fan of review sites and even less for the Big A, but I have been impressed with DPReview any time I visited. I'ts hard to see why Amazon bought it in the first place.

[pschlute]

I'ts hard to see why Amazon bought it in the first place.

Retailer buys website that can influence and channel sales through the retailer.

Nothing wrong in principle with that. But will inevitably lead to editorial/journalistic compromise. There were many suspicions of editorial favouritism, especially since Amazon bought them.

If you are rewarded handsomely for promoting say Nikon or Canon or Sony, what incentive is there to give an even-handed review of other brands ?

[BobGilbody]

When I got back into photography about 6 or 7 years ago DPReview was the place I went to learn and have chit chats. I spent less time there in the last couple of years. Internet chit chat is limited. I find that people in general tend to be wary of exposing themselves to the world. I enjoy this forum because it is closer to the real world and does not involve 'selling' stuff. I heard on the BBC that Tik Tok is worth over $200 billion. Gawd knows why. Anyway it's not my problem. IMO the world is much the same as it always was it's just got more ways of confusing people. I have been confused for longer than I care to remember so it doesn't matter much to me.
PS Obie is doing well. The birds still come for seed.
PPS Any hacker daft enough to gain access to my computer or cell phone or AI developed mind reading yobber rays should, for their own well being give up hacking and become a 'life coach'.

[billtils]

Retailer buys website that can influence and channel sales through the retailer.

True but is the the photo market large enough to make it worthwhile? Add that it's also probably shrinking and will never recover the ground lost to camera phones then the original purchase looks a bit silly.

[pschlute]

True but is the the photo market large enough to make it worthwhile? Add that it's also probably shrinking and will never recover the ground lost to camera phones then the original purchase looks a bit silly.

The photography market was a very different beast in 2007 than it is today

[Steaphany]

Sorry for not being very active here on CiC. the plague and mandates have turned my world upside down.

I just learned of dpreview's shutdown from this video:



It's a nice feeling calling up the CiC site and logging on.

[inkista]

At least Chris and Jordan are moving their youtube action over to the Petapixel channel. So their Canadian shenanigans will be continuing.

I am going to miss the accumulated data/reviews and the folklore of the forums. And tools like the studio shot comparison tool are going to be sorely missed. I really hope someone can swoop in and rescue it. And it's not like Amazon couldn't afford to keep it up even in a read-only state, but. Amazon.

An Internet Archive team is already beavering away to grab as much of it as they can, but having archived pages is not the same as interactive tools like the camera features search tool, or having timelines of the cameras as released. And going forward, nobody's going to be capturing the same information in the same way.

[lunaticitizen]

I moved to DPRevived.com. They're using a very simple, open-sourced forum software, instead of an established one such as vBulletin or XenForo. Not bad, though.

[William W]

True but is the the photo market large enough to make it worthwhile? Add that it's also probably shrinking and will never recover the ground lost to camera phones then the original purchase looks a bit silly.

Not the point. People who visited DP Review did not only visit DPReview.

Another point is, how much Amazon paid for it. There are two price points I think would be foremost that they considered (probably others also):

1. Price to buy to be an Asset (Loss) on their Balance Sheet
2. Price to buy to disallow the competition to buy

WW

[Manfred M]

Not the point. People who visited DP Review did not only visit DPReview.

Another point is, how much Amazon paid for it. There are two price points I think would be foremost that they considered (probably others also):

1. Price to buy to be an Asset (Loss) on their Balance Sheet
2. Price to buy to disallow the competition to buy

WW

While what you have written makes a lot of sense, we also need to remember when Amazon bought DPReview; that was back in 2007. Amazon's business model has evolved a lot over the past 16 years and they are no longer a company that primarily sells traditional books.

The cash rich large companies seem to have a history of buying technology that might peripherally been of interest, only to let the acquisition flounder. Google bought Nik software in 2012, primarily to acquire Snapseed. The Nik Collection was initially expanded, supported, sold and eventually made free. It was then was set adrift and not maintained until it was sold the DxO Labs in 2017.

[William W]

I knew it was a while ago that Amazon acquired DPReview, didn't know the exact year.

Yes, definitely worthwhile mentioning that Amazon's business model has changed. I suggest that Amazon's Capital acquisitions are seen to be flexible enough to fit various business models - even business models not considered at time of purchase.

. . . The cash rich large companies seem to have a history of buying technology that might peripherally been of interest, only to let the acquisition flounder. . .

Also to my point: one of the calculators of purchase price is . . . Price to buy to be an Asset (Loss) on their Balance Sheet.

Bottom line is, I think that big companies acquire smaller companies considering both the profit and the profitable loss potential.

WW

[pschlute]

Also to my point: one of the calculators of purchase price is . . . Price to buy to be an Asset (Loss) on their Balance Sheet.

I would have thought that Amazon's balance sheet would be unaffected by such a purchase.

Any excess they paid over net-asset-value of DPR at the time would have been classified as goodwill, and amortised over a number of years.

[DanK]

And in any case, they could sell it or even give it away, since they get nothing by shutting it down.

This sort of thing happens in technology from time to time. For example, back in the 1990s, there was a fabulous personal information management program called Ecco Pro. The developers sold it to a larger company, and the buyer terminated development a few years later when Outlook was released. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecco_Pro). Users tried for years to keep it running, and a few people still play with extensions, but the owner never released the code. I never understood why they didn't simply make it open source and walk away.

[revi]

And in any case, they could sell it or even give it away, since they get nothing by shutting it down.

This sort of thing happens in technology from time to time. For example, back in the 1990s, there was a fabulous personal information management program called Ecco Pro. The developers sold it to a larger company, and the buyer terminated development a few years later when Outlook was released. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecco_Pro). Users tried for years to keep it running, and a few people still play with extensions, but the owner never released the code. I never understood why they didn't simply make it open source and walk away.

They may not be able to: any larger program will use external libraries. Those can be free/open source, or commercial. In any case, the company will have to abide by the licensing terms of those included libraries. That may make it impossible or useless to make the main program open source.

[Ken MT]

UK-based online store Book Depository is being closed down by its parent company, the US technology giant Amazon.

Book Depository has told customers it will cease operations later this month after almost two decades in business.

It comes after Amazon announced plans to cut thousands of jobs as it shakes up its businesses globally.

The news was met with sadness by many of Book Depository's customers from around the world.

"We are sorry to let you know that Book Depository will be closing on 26 April 2023," the company said.

[JDW in Oz]

According to a post on their site today, there has been a (sort of) reprieve in the closing.

It now seems they will stay open in a limited sense, for an indefinite time period.

As I see it, this translates to (1) members won't be able to post after tomorrow (April 10), and (2) all the information on the site will be "archived" either immediately or at some future date. Also (3) no definite date has been determined for the final closing.

It's all rather confusing (at least to me), but this news seems to be better than nothing.

DPReview had its downsides, but as a late comer to the site, I found it especially useful to easily access technical data and new camera information. I also found the readers' comments were at times more perceptive than the articles.

Anyway, that's the latest. There may be more info posted on the site in the next few days. Let us cross our fingers...