MovieChat Forums > The Affair (2014) Discussion > Petition to Save IMDB Message Boards

Petition to Save IMDB Message Boards

posted 7 years ago by centrd
20 replies | jump to latest

Can't hurt to sign.

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petition-to-keep-the-imdb-messageboards-going

eta: better than petitions, write to jeff@amazon.com directly. He invites email and says he reads it.

"Man is born into trouble as sparks fly upward." –Lucifer

[–] mgreen9715 7 years ago

I've come to peace that they're closing and no amount of petitions are going to change that.

These boards don't generate anything in the way of revenue for IMDB/Amazon and they are a business so basically they are thinking like a business.

Reddit has quite a few show subreddits on it.

[–] centrd 7 years ago

These boards could generate SO much money if they just thought about it for a minute. It would be so easy. Hey, I COULD handle their advertising sales and get rich. And I know what I'm talking about. Many years ago I worked for radio and sold radio advertising, among other things.

"Man is born into trouble as sparks fly upward." –Lucifer

[–] Gheelnory 7 years ago

mgreen9715 wrote:

These boards don't generate anything in the way of revenue for IMDB/Amazon and they are a business so basically they are thinking like a business.

centrd wrote:

These boards could generate SO much money if they just thought about it for a minute.

I'm a regular on a largish (but far smaller than IMDb) forum that pays its own way two ways: non-paying users see ads on the message-board pages, while those who pay US$20 per year see no ads. It seems to work quite well.

Amazon, understandably, wants all its endeavors to contribute to the Amazon bottom line. The idea behind buying IMDb, presumably, was that people would come to IMDb to satisfy curiosity about a movie or TV show---then would move on to Amazon to PAY to see that or related movies and TV shows (DVDs or streaming).

A few years back when Amazon started pruning the IMDb boards severely, it was clear that they were unhappy with the return they were getting on the cash outlay for servers, etc, that was required to make the IMDB boards available. And this latest development shows that they have given up hope that board users would pay their way by making Amazon purchases.

But what Amazon isn't considering is the magnitude of the numbers of people who like to come to IMDb after seeing a movie or TV show, just to get some question answered or confirm some reaction or express a thought. This very large group, along with the smaller (but still substantial--thousands!) group of daily IMDb board users, IS A MARKET that Amazon, by deleting the boards, is voluntarily giving up access to.

Why not make use of this very large group of faithful site visitors, by instituting an ads-or-pay-membership-to avoid-ads system? It's true that most IMDb board users would prefer NOT to see ads or to have to pay a membership fee to avoid ads...................................but wouldn't those same board users prefer ads-or-fee to the current alternative, NO BOARDS....?????

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Grey Fairy / White Wolf

[–] centrd 7 years ago

Plus, they're losing out on people like me, who hear about a show from other IMDB posters and then go to Amazon to watch it. I've done that so many times. I'm on Twitter, and Facebook, Instagram, etc and I've never heard of a show there that I then went to Amazon to watch. For one thing, I don't want to litter my feed with entertainment ads so I would never follow a site like Amazon or IMDB. Way too much info that I don't want to scroll past.

I think they just don't know how to utilize what they've got. Many companies would pay a lot for this kind of built-in demographic. I'm sure that's why Amazon bought it in the first place. But clearly IMDB's management either doesn't know how to optimize the potential, or the site was never given the budget to make it a success. I think they're crazy.

"Man is born into trouble as sparks fly upward." –Lucifer (quoting Job 5:7 - Vertigo Comics)

[–] Gheelnory 7 years ago

Yes, the waste involved in throwing away a large and dedicated group of regular users is perplexing.

It's certainly true that Amazon has basically been giving users a message board 'for free'---no ads except when we first come to the main page for each movie or show. Amazon can't be expected to go on doing that.

But why not try the 'ads on the boards + option to avoid ads by paying a membership fee' method of making the IMDb boards pay their own way?

A benefit would be that fewer trolls would be attracted to the boards (the minute they sign up for a membership they'd no longer be anonymous to the board-administrators--so they'd probably decide to spend their time elsewhere).

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Grey Fairy / White Wolf