***Where to go now thread*** Locked

Hi David,

Nice place to see indeed, looks very interesting, but I'm not sure I'll join because :

- I couldn't find a description of the differences between free and paid memberships, and what is allowed or not to free users. I found a not so recent post stating that free members would not be allowed to even see the critique forums, although this may not be true anymore because it seems some are visible even without a free account.

- What I could find lets me think that this place is only willing to welcome dedicated, highly skilled photographers (the usual "quality before quantity" approach). One wonderful thing at dpreview forums is that you could keep posted even if photography is an irregular hobby, or during periods when you couldn't get out with a camera. And with 3 young kids at home it is exactly my situation right now...

More progress on dprevived.com reported here

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4705915

(look at the whole thread for latest news)

mujana wrote:

Smaug01 wrote:

I just joined this forum ↑ too. I prefer the layout of it to that the previously-mentioned "open photography forum". It does have ads, but they're not obnoxious, as they can be here sometimes.

It doesn't have a million subforums, either. (which I like)

Different. I like a few more subforums (but not millions )

It has a lower population now, but maybe that is good.

For this moment that' s comfortable...but I hope more and more DPR forum users will join.

We are modifying our organization closer to that of DPReview. Also we already have DPReview migrants joining.

We have been going since 2006 and have advanced filters to block spammers and we’ve an established self-regulated atmosphere of courtesy and almost zero need to regulate posts!

Give us a chance. It’s free and you can upload pictures and link videos!

Asher

Truman Prevatt wrote:

bobn2 wrote:

Truman Prevatt wrote:

bobn2 wrote:

Truman Prevatt wrote:

bobn2 wrote:

Truman Prevatt wrote:

bobn2 wrote:

Lucio Cicuto wrote:

As others said really hope someone steps in and saves DPR.

From what I gather Amazon isn't really very interested even in putting in the work to let someone else save it.

Often times an asset is not worth the cost of selling it. In reality a Web site like DPR has little inherent value. The advertisers would probably be gone - short term contracts - and could not be counted on for a revenue stream. The server space is rented not owned. There are a number of employees that would need to be retained to keep it running by a new owner.

The legal fees in selling the asset may be more than the value of the asset. In which case the best option is to just dump the asset. I expect that is the case with DPR. The fact that Jordan and Chris are already out the door - I don't see anyone coming in to buy DPR.

I think there is interest, but likely not as a going concern - it was too big for the current photo market. As you say though, it's likely not worth while selling it, so far as Amazon is concerned.

Face it DPR is a journalism site. Today journalism is not a great business to be in. There is a good article about this that just went up on PetaPixel.com. Look at what has happened to news outlets. The beauty of DPR was everything was in one place. They had great reporting. They had access to equipment to test and engineers and managers to talk with. It was this that brought people to the site - to learn about the evolving cameras and technology. Having the forums along with the latest news and other stores make DPR unique.

DPR used ads like most journalism business do as a major source of revenue. However, today even browsers block ads. There are add on ad blockers that do a better job. Even my new EERO mesh WiFi router blocks ads up front. The latest report was 12,402 ads blocked by my router last month! If the users don't see the ads, the value of the site for advertisers goes down. With more and more restrictions on tracking from sites, wet site owners cannot monetize the data from their traffic and sell it - another source of revenue.

On top of all that the camera digital camera business has been contracting the last 8 or so years as the disruption of the consumer digital camera has worked its way through the economy and today the camera sales for digital cameras are about the same as for film cameras prior to the advent of digital.

While someone at Amazon thought it worth the investment - they probably paid more for DPR than it was really worth to them. In realty some of the forum users that used the very resources provided by Amazon used the forums to poke a stick in Amazon's eye and trash Amazon. It would probably cost them more to sell DPR than they would recover from the sale. For company bean counters - that points to a pretty simple solution shut it down. After all Google bought Nik Software with a big splash. They basically have the plug ins out free then they decided to not spend any money improving or even maintaining the product and let it wilt. If DXO had not have saved it - the Nik plugins would be no more. Most likely Google had no interest the digital photography processing but bought Nik for Snapseed which was created by Nik. They spun off Snapseed and proceeded to let the Nik plugins wilt on the vine until DXO rescued them.

What is clear from the last few days is Amazon does not feel it worth the effort or expense to sell DPR. However, Amazon still owns all rights to DPR - including the name which may or may not make a difference. Secondly, the business sense of starting another photographic news site after the most popular and well known is going out of business does seem like a great idea. This is not 25 years ago where DPR was created as a start up as a new site for consumer digital camera technology and products that took the world by storm as everyone had to have one and they were flying off the shelves and new innovations were coming fast and furious.

Today - everyone that wants one has one and the newer models have entered the cycle of decreasing marginal improvements.

Yes, I agree with all of that - but I don't think that it's beyond the realms of possibility to create something with at least some of the same characteristics.

I have been involved in three different startups. Two were successful. The third - well not so much. I hope I am wrong but today I don't see a journalism start up being top on the list for funding - and it takes money. Second DPR is gone - Amazon owns all the rights and they aren't going to spend any more money on it and answering the phone cost money according to the bean counters and face it the bean counters run most companies.

There are two parts of DPR - news and forums. By and far they are symbiotic. The news stimulates the forums and the forums stimulate the clicks. The forums bring people to the site to generate revenue. PetaPixel has the news and review coverage but no forums. I think our only hope is for PitaPixel to shallow hard and add forums. Maybe Amazon would sell its forum list and PetaPixel put its toes in the water with a subset asking the DPR Mods to on board. See how it goes and potentially expand the forums. But are the owners of PetiPixel will to take that financial risk?

I'm not talking about all forums (at least to start). Start out with Nikon, Leica, Canon, Fujifilm ( don't delineate between FX and GFX), Sony, Panasonic and Olympic Systems. Maybe a few specialized forums like Black and White, PC talk, Printing, etc. Start small and see how it goes.

But at the end of the day if one went to a bank or any other source of funding about this venture - you would be picking yourself pitched onto the sidewalk.

Let's hope the wheels are turning and some are willing to take a financial risk. But hopefully if it does happen people won't bite the hand that feeds it and trash the owner of the site publicly online on the resource they are paying for. Who would want to put up good money to create a resource that is used to trash them? In some respects I really can't blame Amazon.

This is the real world - it is business not personal. I've been fired because things didn't work out. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. The guy that fired me got fired a month later and he rounded up cash to invest in one of my successful startups as a silent partner. I've had to fire people because things didn't work out. It really sucks - but it is part of the process. For something to succeed it has to make business sense. I think DPR got to the point with Amazon that it didn't make business sense and it wasn't with enough to even spend the money to sell it.

I've been involved in startups myself, but I don't see this as a startup - it's just a community acting together to allow it to continue to operate. I don't see any commercial aims or need to bring in funding. The idea is not to replicate DPR, just provide a place where its denizens can continue to chat about photography.

...DPReview was an intelligent combination of fredmiranda and PetaPixel with not one the downsides of either.

Exactly. So far the closest we will have to DPR will be to have 2 websites open at the same time; FM for forums and PP for news and reviews.

larrytusaz wrote:

I don't know that will work, since the word is the entire site will be wiped.

Then start saving those links NOW.  You have until April 10.

Don_D wrote:

StrugglingforLight wrote:

Facebook is a no go for me. And that is coming from a younger person read millennial. I don't understand how some can dislike Reddit and then plug FB. FB is a much bigger evil in society but lets not go down that road.

Not trying to divert or highjack this thread, but I must say that I personally like FB. I use it everyday. I am in several groups on FB.... all interesting and useful.

FB is not perfect but to say it's evil is ridiculous IMHO.

Social media has an impossible task of trying to allow free speech without doing harm and not publishing harmful and false content. Everyone knows the problem but no one has a solution or even ideas of how to move forward to make things better.

Don, I agree with you. Facebook is like anything else and is what a person makes of it.  I also like some of the groups.

In fact, one of my favorite groups is better, in some ways, than DPR.