Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

The problem with someone buying it is, the money they have tied up in it needs to pay back somehow. Hence the pressure to increase traffic and get more clicks on more ads.

Back in the early days the DS forums were not so very different than here. DS obviously had a broader subject matter and appeal and grew larger than we did. But we have always been a privately owned site run because we just want to do it basically .... we advertise to cover costs but we have no investments to repay and no staff wages. So as social media has put old fashioned bulletin boards under pressure they have had further to fall and more to lose, and we have been able to sustain (modestly) lower visitor numbers without cutting back on what matters, namely your daily dose of forum banter. :D

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

I think you're absolutely spot on there Chris.

I don't know why Hearst thought that transferring their frivolous subject matter from their paper magazines to a forum built primarily on an interest in technology and media would work.

In addition to all the aforementioned external pressures faced by CF and other forums, it has had to face competition from the launch of the VM Community Forums, yet has still survived.

I guess that this forum is also lucky in that Paul does the technical side of things, the DS search facility has been broken for yonks, they are aware of it, but there are no plans to fix it!

Surely it wouldn't cost that much; it's so unprofessional for a forum not to have such a basic thing as a search facility- there are duplicate threads all over the place.

If nobody reports them, they just get left because it's only reactively moderated.

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

I'm sure James walked away moderately happy though.

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

Oh yes, he (and the other owners) got paid "a significant amount" for it.

They built it up and then sold it on at about the right time.

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

And now is perhaps the right time for it to close.

The old adade applies the same here as to any other business. It's easy to lose customers but a damn sight harder to get them back again.

They've lost users who now get their info elsewhere.

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

Bandwidth is really quite cheap - and you can spread the load across multiple web servers. You can get a 1 TB VPS to run as a web server for < £100 per year. Storage (for the database) is really just as cheap as well. The cost of a thread like you mention would be little more than pence per year.

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

Oh right, I didn't realise that it was this cheap to run a forum.

Maybe the savings will be made from staff wages ie the moderators that are still paid, journalists etc.

I have a friend who hosts a website in his cellar! It's really warm and he has to have a dehumidifier on 24/7.

I'm thinking of hosting a server myself:

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...2#post35871262

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

And you'll see the quality of the site deteriorate further and lose more users.

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

Agreed. I also think that I was being kind in giving them the title of "journalists"!

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

As Paul says, extra threads (no matter how pointless) don't add much to the cost of running the site.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with the statement about advertising. I don't mind advertising on a site (I understand they have costs, and they have every right to make a profit), but the advertising on DS has gone from a mild diversion to a massive pain. For a long time, I couldn't even access the site from my iPad as the full screen ad they insisted on displaying on the main page frequently crashed safari.

I think they can survive, but they need to make the advertising less intrusive. They also need to drop the animated gifs, which make the site look a little like a flashy geocities site from the 90s.

I'd like to see the comments on the articles come back, but they disappeared around the time of the Tulisa court case, and while they were apparently disabled for maintenance, I don't think they will come back.

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

DS is currently unavailable due to updating its software.

The forums due to be cut seem to relate to gaming.

There is going to be a ban and terminated account amnesty.

Anyone who wishes to have their ban reviewed can send an email to forum@digitalspy.co.uk with 'Ban amnesty' or 'terminated account' as the subject heading.

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

I would, but as I have a new account on there I don't want to cause trouble and get banned again. Although I suppose I could always ask for the new one to be shut down or something.

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

Wow, are they really that desperate for members :erm:

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

I think a lot of the banned people will have reregistered under another name or will be attempts at creating duplicate accounts.

---------- Post added at 14:29 ---------- Previous post was at 14:25 ----------

There has been widespread criticism that people were inappropriately banned or that infractions were being issued to some people or even nothing at all for something that others had been permanently banned for.

There are still rumours going round the media world that they will be closing next year.

I personally think that they are trying to get their house in order and that this is the last chance saloon to sort things out before throwing in the towel.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/annou...php?f=22&a=397

Re: Digital Spy may be closed or downsized.
 

2nd day down, if their 72 hours was accurate it should be backup tomorrow around 10:30am.